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proceedings of the 

Cbird 
Capon Springs Conference 

for 
Bducation in the South 

1900. 



Printing Office, 

St. Augustine's School. 

Roleigh, N. C. 




i li^ 



p. 

Author. 



THIRD CAPON SPRINGS CONFERENCE 



The Third Capon Springs Conference for P2ducation m the 
vSouth assembled in the Chapel on the grounds of the Capon 
Springs Hotel on Wednesday, June 27, 1900 at 10 A. M. 

After a devotional service conducted by the Rev'd. Joseph 
N. Blanchard, D. D., the Conference was called to order by 
Dr. J. L. M. Curry. 

An address of welcome on behalf of Capt. W. H. Sale was 
made by Prof. A. L. Nelson of Washington and Lee Univer- 
sity. Response was made by Mr. John V. Sears of Philadel 
phia and Mr. Everett P. Wheeler of New York. 

A survey of the field and of the objects of the Confer- 
ence was then given in an address by Dr. Curry. 

The Executive Committee recommended that papers be lim- 
ited to twenty minutes and informal addresses to five min- 
utes and it was so decided. 

A paper on "Changing Conditions and Changed Methods" 
was then read by the Rev'd. George S. Dickerman, D,D. who 
for a year had been collecting information in the interest of 
the Conference. 

The paper -was discussed by Mr. Herbert Welsh, tne Rev'd. 
Lyman Ward, the Rev'd. Pitt Dillingham, the Rev'd. Joseph N. 
Blanchard, Dr. J. L. M. Curry, the Rev'd. D. H. Greer, Mr. 
R. Fulton Cutting, President William L- Wilson and Dr. 
Charles F. Meserve. 

On motion, a special committee of five was appointed to 
take under consideration the solicitation of funds for unworthy 
objects. Dr. Curry appointed Dr. Blanchard, President Wil- 
son, Dr. Greer, Prof. Tuttle, and Mr. Wheeler. 

On motion of Professor Tucker, the President appointed a 



Committee on Resolutions consisting of Dr. Greer, Mr. Cut- 
ting, Mr. Sears, Dr. Dickerman, Mr. Wheeler, Gen'l. Wilson, 
Dr. Gilbert, to which committee Mr. Herbert Welsh was 
afterward added. 

The President appointed Dr. Dickerman, Professor Tucker 
and Dr. Merriwether, a committee to nominate officers and 
members of the Executive Committee. 

On Wednesday night after a devotional service conducted 
b\' the Rev' d. Pitt Dillingham, a paper on "The Object of 
the Conference as seen by a Northern business man" by 
Mr. Robert C. Ogden was read by Dr. Merriwether. 

Miss lyouisa J. Smith of Randolph Macon Woman's Col- 
lege read a paper on "Art in Education" which was discussed 
by Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Welsh. 

An address followed on "The Kind of Education needed 
for the Negro Race" by Dr. Frank G. Woodworth, of 
Tougaloo University, Mississippi. 

The Committee on Nominations reported for 
President, .... Mr. Robert C. Ogden, 

Vice-PRESiDENT, . . . Proe. James A. QuarlES, 

Secretary and Treasurer, . Rev'd. A. B. Hunter, 
and for the Executive Committee: 

Dr. Charles F. Meserve, Prof. Charles E. Vawter, 

Dr. J. L. M. Curry, Prof. H. S. G. Tucker, 

Mr. Herbert Welsh, Prof. A. L,. Nelson, 

Dr. H. B. Frissell, 
and they were elected. 

On Thursday morning, after a devotional service conducted 
by the Rev'd. J. E. Gilbert, D. D., the Treasurer present- 
ed his report showing receipts of $379,10 and expenditures 
of $374.14, leaving a balance in his hands of $4.96. 



The President appointed Dr. Merriwether to audit the 
Treasurer's account. 

Dr. Meserve moved that the time and place of the next 
Conference be left with the Executive Committee. Adopted. 

A paper on the "Higher Education of the Negro," was read 
by the Rev'd. Horace Bumstead, D. D., President of Atlanta 
Universit5^ The paper was discussed by Dr. Meserve, Mr. 
Cutting, Mr. Wheeler, Dr. Dickerman, Dr. Gilbert, Dr. 
Quarles, Dr. Converse, Dr. Greer, Mr. Ward, and Dr. Cur- 
ry. 

Mrs. A. H. Tuttle then addressed the Conference on the work 
of the Southern woman in helping solve the Negro problem. 

Dr. Quarles took the chair when Dr. Curry felt compelled 
to leave and the gratitude of the Conference was expressed to 
Dr. Curry by a rising vote. 

A collection of $6.20 w^as made for the sexton in charge of 
the Chapel. 

A paper on "Southern Periodicals" was then read bj^ Dr. 
Colyer Merriwether. 

Capt. C. E. Vawter, the head of the Miller Industrial 
School, Albemarle County, Virginia, then addressed the con- 
ference on industrial education The address was discussed by 
Mr. W^elsh and Prof. Tuttle and on motion of Mr. Wheeler, 
Capt. Vaw^ter was requested to put his address in writing and 
the Excutive Committee was requested to give it such circu- 
lation as they think best. 

At the session on Thursday night the following was read by 
Mr. Herbert Welsh from the Committee on Resolutions: 

"At the conclusion of the civil war by granting the suf- 
frage to the freedmen, the nation incurred to some degree the 
moral obligation to fit him for the exercise of this great priv- 
ilege. The experience of thirty years has proved conclusiv- 



6 

ly the necessity of giving both to him and the poorer class of 
Southern whites a primary and industrial education. Such 
will greatl}^ tend to relieve the dangerous and acute problem 
in which both races are now involved and toward which the 
South has already made a grand contribution of one hundred 
millions of dollars, despite the exhaustion incident to the 
Civil war. 

Industrial training now afforded the Negro at Hampton, 
Tuskegee and similar institutions; and given to whites at the 
Miller School, Albemarle Count}^ Virginia, indicates the 
methods which, in our opinion are best fitted, in the main, to 
provide the solution of this problem. But the noble and ef- 
fective work now being accomplished for both races by these 
institutions is entirelj^ insufficient in extent to cover the 
whole field. We therefore earnestly call on our fellow citi- 
zens of both sections of the country to petition the General 
Government to furnish such assistance to those States cf 
the Union, on which the burden chiefl}^ rests, as wall enable 
them more fully to meet the needs and to relieve the strain of 
the situation." 

After remarks bj' Dr. Greer, Dr. Blanchard, Mr. Cutting, 
Dr. Horr, Prof. Tucker, and Capt. Vawter, the resolution 
was adopted. 

On motion of Mr. Wheeler, the Executive Committee was 
requested to take under consideration the best plan for car- 
rying it out. 

Dr. Blanchard from the special committee on the solictation 
of funds for unworth}^ objects, presented the following 
report: 

"The education of the colored race is a work of national im- 
portance. Its needs are great. There is every disposition to 



supph' those needs. But there is a difficulty to be overcome. 
Irresponsible persons in the South are using the situation 
for fraudulent ends. Where there is no fraudulent end in 
view there is often incompetency and folly. The result is 
that a great deal of money is given every year to worthless 
enterprises. And a worse result follows. The confidence of 
the public is shaken. Men hesitate to give because they can 
not determine what objects are worthy. The problem is a 
serious one. The situation should be relieved. A great 
waste of charity should be stopped and the confidence of the 
people should be preserved in the good work undoubtedly done 
by many excellent institutions. 

To accomplish this, we recommend that this Conference 
constitute, 

Dr. J. Iv. M. Curry, General Agent of the Peabody and 
Slater Fund, 

Rev. G. S. Dickerman, Agent of the Capon Springs Con- 
ference, 140 Cottage St. New Haven, Conn, and 

Mr. R. Fulton Cutting, 
a committee to serve as a Bureau of information on the sub- 
ject. This committee is to stand read}^ to investigate all cases 
referred to it of schools claiming to educate the Colored race. 
The attention of the public should be called to the existence 
of this committee, and all persons shall be asked to consult 
it before giving aid to unknown parties. The committee in 
each instance is to report the facts in the case with all infor- 
mation necessary for a clear view of the situation. 

It is also recommended that the committee we have named 
be asked to report at the next Capon Springs Conference 
what further steps are necessary to promote the object stated 
above. 

The difficulty is obvious. We desire to remove it by bring- 



ing those who have a right to ask for help and those who 
want to give it together. 

JOvSEPH N. Bl^ANCHARD, 
WlI<I,IAM L,. WitSON, 

David H. Greer, 
A. H. TuTTi.E, 
Everett P. WheeivEr, 

On motion, the report was adopted. 

On Friday morning, after a devotional service conducted by 
the Rev'd. J. S. Gilbert, D. D., an address on "A Southern 
Woman's Way of Helping the Negro" was made bj^ Mrs. 
George S. Barnum of Savannah, Ga. Remarks were made 
b}^ Mr. Hunter and Dr. Dickerman. 

President Wilson expressed his dissent as a member of the 
Committee on Resolutions from the resolution offered by Mr. 
Welsh, he having been unable to be present at the session of 
last night when it was under discussion. 

On molion of Mr. Ward, the resolution of Mr. Welsh was 
reconsidered and after remarks by Dr. Greer, Dr. Gilbert, 
Mr. Sears, and Mr. Wheeler, the whole subject matter was 
referred to the Executive Committee. 

On motion of Mr. Wheeler, a collection amounting in cash 
and pledges to $181.25 was then made for the expenses of the 
Conference in printing its report. 

A paper on "Education During and After School Da5^s' 
was then read by Dr. Julius D. Dreher, President of Roan- 
oke College. It was discussed bj^ Dr. Merriwether, Mr. 
Ward and Dr. Converse. 

The Secretary made a statement concerning the abundant 
hospitality offered by Capt. Sale. 

Dr. Greer then submitted the following report of the 
Committee on Resolutions: 



9 



Resolved that the thanks of the Conference are due and 
they are herewith cordially extended to Capt. W. H. Sale, 
the proprietor of the Capon Springs Hotel for his delight- 
ful and generous hospitality in the entertainment of the 
Conference and the courtesy and kindness which it has re- 
ceived at his hands. 

We also beg to express the hope that his health will con- 
tinue to improve and may be completely restored. 

Resolved that the Capon Springs Conference, recognizing 
and appreciating the faithful and valuable work and gra- 
tuitous service of the Rev'd. G. S. Dickerman, the agent of 
the Conference and the importance of the imformation 
which he has collected, hereby request him to continue this 
work for another year, to visit the superintendents of the 
various schools of the South, to obtain suggestions from 
them and to confer with representative men of the section in 
regard to the progress and needs of Southern education and 
to report the result of his observation and inquiries to the 
next session of the Conference. 

David H, Greer, Chairman. 

On motion, the report was adopted. 

Dr. Gilbert made an announcement concerning the sum- 
mer meeting of the American Societ}' for the Study of 
Scripture. 

On motion of Dr. Dickerman, Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Cut- 
ting were added to the Executive Committee. 

Dr. Quarles made a closing address and at 12.40 P. M. 
the Conference adjourned. 

A. B. Hunter, 

Secretary. 



10 



Report of A. B. Hunter, Tn 


•:asurer. 


Expenditures. 




Printing, 50C0 Reports, 


$215.73 


Express, 


14.90 


Postag-e, 


122.66 


Sending off 4000 reports. 


20. 


Printing Postal cards. 


1.15 



$374.14 



Receipts. 



Various oiferings, 3/9.10 

374.14 



Balance on hand $4.96 

Respectfully submitted, 

A. B. Hunter, Treas. 

June 28, 1900. 

Examined and approved, 

C. Merriwether, 
A uditor. 



Agent's Report, 
changing conditions and changed 

METHODS. 
Rkv. G. S. Dickerman, D. D., New Haven, Conn. 



The action of last 5^ ear's Conference, looking to the em- 
ployment of an agent, defined somewhat clearly the service 
he should undertake in a series of resolutions with which 
you are familiar. The object in view was particularly stated 
m the following language: "whose chief dut}^ it will be to 
study conditions in detail and to ascertain such facts with 
respect to Southern education, both public and private, 
as will make more clear what methods and agencies are to 
be encouraged, and what to be avoided or reformed, and 
will secure better harmony and more efiicient concentration 
of effort in all educational work carried on in the South." 
This object I have tried to keep in view in the course that 
has been followed under the approval of your committee. 

I have made three journeys during the year, visiting 
schools in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama, 
and conferring with school superintendents, teachers and 
others interested in educational concerns. My reception has 
been uniformly cordial and appreciative, many have express- 
ed strong personal sympathy with the aims of the Capon 
Springs Conference, and assistance has been freely ren- 
dered for the fulfilment of my errand. If there had been 
any doubt in the beginning as to the practicability of this 
work, the evidence is now abundant that such a doubt is with- 
out foundation. 



12 

As to conditions, one thing meets us constantly, not in the 
South especially but all over the country. Conditions are 
changing and changing so fast that it is not easy to keep up 
with them. lyooking back over the century now closing, no 
one needs to tell us that conditions to-day are not what they 
were in 1 800. But are we equally awake to the fact that con- 
ditions to-day are not what they were in 1890 or in 1895? 
Yet the America of five years ago was very different from 
that in which we now live. It may even be questioned 
whether the changes of these last five years have not been 
more vital in our national life than all which occurred dur- 
ing the first half of the century. Comparing the course of 
events before 1850 with that of these later times is like com- 
paring the movement of an ox-team with that of a lightning 
express. 

In 1850, our chief city New York had a population of 
515,000 and our people were mostl}^ scattered' over the coun- 
try in agricultural pursuits or in other simple industries. 
Now we have ten cities with an aggregate population of 
over 10,000,000; we have five or six hundred cities with 
an aggregate population of not less than 25,000,000, more 
than the population of the whole country fifty years 
ago; and the proportion of our people living in cities has 
risen in this time from one-eighth to one-third. These fig- 
ures show what a transformation has come to the whole 
order of American life. 

This transformation has great meanings for the 
work of education. The educational want of our time 
is not identical with that of fifty years ago. A training 
which was admirable once may be ineffective now. What 
we call "education" is only a part of actual education. 
The discipline of life does not come from a single source but 



13 

is the composite effect of influences that play upon a person 
from all quarters. Training in school is to be taken in con- 
nection with other training out of school. The school teacher 
is one of many teachers who touch the life to give it impulse, 
tone, character. Hence the school teacher's province is limit- 
ed by what others are doing. He should give what others do not 
give and when they change their course he must change too. 

The first of schools is the home. Home training comes be- 
fore every other in life's unfoldings. No other teachers are 
like the father and mother, brothers and sisters. No other 
lessons are like those which come along in the natural order 
of events, as unperceived as the atmosphere, as constant 
as day and night. A superior life is seldom found which 
has not grown under the molding power of superior influences 
in the family. 

Two different types of home life are to be distinguished, 
one of which prevails more in the country and the other 
in the city. In the former, children are under the immed- 
iate oversight of their parents and in constant companion- 
ship with them. In the latter, the parents are engaged with 
occupations in which their children have no share, and 
so the children must be left to other companionships and 
guidance. This is perhaps the most essential variation be- 
tween a typical countr)- home and a typical home in the cit}-. 

Other differences are manifest. The environment of the 
field is not that of the street. The outlook on meadows, 
pastures, mountains, quiet lakes and far horizons of forest 
and ocean gives an impression wholly unlike that of massive 
buildings and whirring machinery, rushing trains and 
hurrying throngs. There is a play of thought and feeling 
in the spot where nature and nature's children meet you 
at every turn which is not found in the shadow of manufac- 
tories and houses of trade. Your associations breathe with 



14 

sincerity and faithfulness, plain things become beautiful, and 
rugged toil draws dignity from its surroundings. It is a com- 
m_onplace of history that the soundest characters more often 
come from country homes. It is especially so in American 
history, for in our earlier period all homes were in the 
country. 

That change then by which 25,000,000 of our people have 
become massed in the cities means not a little. Country 
homes have been the strength and glory of America. Is 
this strength declining? Is this glory fading? There is a 
problem of our cities. There is another problem of our 
hamlets. The two problems when we see them together 
are one. We can solve neither unless we solve both. The 
city must be saved to save the hamlet. The hamlet must 
be saved to save the city. 

The problem of the hamlet is uppermost when we think 
of education in the South. There are hardly a dozen cities 
in this whole section with fifty thousand or more people in 
them, and the combined population of all these is less than 
that of Philadelphia alone, not to mention Chicago or New 
York. Yet the area of the Southern States this side of the 
Mississippi is far larger than that of the Northern states. 
The whole region too is occupied excepting a corner of 
Florida. The last Census has a passage on "Vacant Spaces, ' ' 
that is, tracts of uninhabited territory. One of these was 
in Maine, another in New York among the Adirondacks, 
another in the Wisconsin woods, and another in the Florida 
Everglades, but no space of this kind is pointed out in the 
whole region between Mason and Dixon's line and the 
Everglades. Throughout its length and breadth are people 
living on the land, over the Appalachian ranges, in the 
great swamps and marshes near the coast, as well as in 



15 

parts to which nature has been more bountiful, farms and 
homes and families of children. 

By contrast, glance at a narrow strip of territor}^, say ten 
miles wide and four hundred miles long, through which 
runs the line of railroad connecting Washington, Balti- 
more, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. On this strip, 
having a less area than Connecticut, are living to-day eight 
millions o^ people, nearly as many as the white population 
of the Southern States east of the Mississippi. 

Compare these two groups of millions. In one, less than 
half of the people are of native American stock. They 
or their parents have come from all quarters of the earth. 
They speak many languages and have usages, traditions 
and religions of every sort. The American element blend- 
ing with the foreign is modified. Life is complex and in- 
tense. Extremes of every kind come close together, im- 
mense wealth, lavish splendor, grand achievements, and 
pinching poverty, wretched squalor, vain striiggles to keep 
from starving, all before your eyes at once. And such con- 
centrations of power, vast resources in a few hands em- 
ployed so as to govern rr.ovements reaching for good or 
evil over half the continent, immense responsibilities, in- 
volving countless interests, borne sometimes with a sted- 
fastness that is sublime and again trifled with as if the 
merest bauble, and criminally betrayed! To see these things 
every hour in the day and every day in the year — how dif- 
ferent it is from pursuing one's occupation on a plantation 
and with only the society of a few neighbors and servants! 

The people of the South are native Americans, almost all 
holding traditions and usages which have come down from 
their fathers. They speak a common language and hold a 
common faith. They are a homogeneous people and the 



16 

Negroes at their side are another people equally homoge- 
neous. For complexity they have individualit3\ For the 
strife of competition they have the cultivation of their fields. 
For the management of diversified affairs they have the 
government of their own households. For responsibility 
to public opinion they have responsibility to the tribunal 
within. 

What shall be done for the children of such a people? See 
what we are doing for the children in Washington, Phila- 
delphia, New York and Boston, for the children in all the 
populous portions of the North. Are we doing too much 
for these? No sensible person will say that we are. Yet 
is it a whit more important to provide good schools for 
these children than it is for those who are growing up in 
another part of the country? The nation is one and it needs 
intelligent, soundly educated citizens throughout all its 
borders wherever a ballot is cast or any interest to be guard- 
ed. To neglect the welfare of any is like neglecting cer- 
tain places in the levees along the banks of the Mississip- 
pi. When the flood comes it will find the lowest spot and 
it makes no difference whether this is opposite New Or- 
leans or a hundred miles above by some uninhabited 
swamp. 

But the children of sparsely settled regions do not always 
need the same pattern of schools that are provided in cities. 
They need schools to meet the conditions that prevail, and 
to insure this the school must be developed on its own 
ground. That is the work in which the people of the South 
are themselves engaged, especially in their public school 
system. This is a work however, which they cannot do 
wholly alone. It is too much of an undertaking and beset 
with too serious difficulties. 



17 

I do not think these difficulties are generally appreciated. 
Thus in many of the smaller communities there is really 
no proper conception of what a good school is; no person 
living there has the education and culture to promote 
such a conception, no one in the place is competent to be 
a teacher, and sometimes there is no school-house. Who 
will say that it is easy to establish a first class school under 
those circumstances? In such a case, even if there were 
money enough, it would be very difficult to set up the 
school. Wholly unfit persons would try to get the place 
of teacher, to secure the salary, and incompetent officials 
would be likely to grant it, for some consideration perhaps. 

I have been told by superintendents and teachers in four 
or five different States that this is actually one of the 
worst obstacles in their way. Small as the school funds 
are, they yet offer a temptation to the unworthy. Corrupt 
office-holders treat them as their perquisites. Sometimes 
an appointment to teach is sold for so much cash, some- 
times it is made a reward of political services, and cases 
now and then appear in which it is bestowed for even more 
objectionable ends. In this way there come to be teach- 
ers in certain unfortunate districts who have not even the 
rudiments of learning, who can hardly read or write intel- 
ligibly, and whose morals are perhaps equally defective. 
A school managed in this way can be little better than none. 
Possibly it is worse than no school at all. 

But speaking of teachers, we all know that this is a serious 
question in the most favored places. How much more seri- 
ous it must be in hundreds of districts where everything is 
unattractive, a cheerless school-room with the roughest fur- 
niture imaginable, a wretched boarding place, a bare pittance 
of a salary and a session of only two or three months! Over 
a hundred thousand persons are employed as teachers in 



i8 

Southern public schools. What if these were all competent — 
each one well endowed, well trained, high-minded and apt to 
teach! In a single decade they would raise American life in 
all its phases to a higher plane. But the difficulty is to put 
such teachers in all these places. Great emphasis is laid up- 
on the necessity of training teachers. That is well, but the 
problem has another element, getting the teacher in charge 
of a school and keeping him to his calling. This is the main 
difficulty in all the country districts. There are thousands 
of well educated young men and women who are competent 
to teach and who would be glad to teach, but they are not 
teaching. Why? Is it their fault? Not wholl5^ not chiefly, 
it is the fault of our methods in school management. With 
our innumerable schools of training there needs to be incor- 
porated some practical system for making the training accom- 
plish its end, some method of transferring the normal gradu- 
ate to a teacher's chair as simple and eas}- as that by which a 
pupil goes from the high school to college. 

Yet with all these hinderances we meet everywhere strik- 
ing indications of progress. The educational spirit is abroad. 
People are talking about their schools in hotels, on the cars 
and steamboats, as well as in neighborhood circles. News- 
papers are calling attention to the necessity' of popular educa- 
tion and are filling their columns with discussions on the 
subject. Larger appropriations of money are asked and are 
granted. Some are advocating compulsorj- attendance of all 
children upon the public schools, even in states where the 
schools are wretchedly inadequate for those who do attend. 
The school is coming to be looked on as a defence against the 
disorders of society and a promoter of general prosperit5^ 

But more suggestive than anything else perhaps is the 
appearance here and there in different parts of the country of 
strong men, finished scholars, bold, independent thinkers, 



19 

persuasive masters of speech, who have grown up on south- 
ern soil, so that the peculiar problems of that region belong 
to their very blood and marrow, and are devoting themselves 
to educational work for the people among whom they have 
always lived. No signs of the times are like men. No signs 
in the educational field of our times mean more than these 
men. In some cases they are at the head of the public school 
system of a state and the whole system stirs with a more vig- 
orous life on account of their intellectual force and moral 
insight. They are the master spirits in normal schools to 
which their name attracts hundreds of ambitious youth, and 
their personal power is such as to awaken dull minds to a 
love of intellectual pursuits and to inspire every student 
with a new sense of the dignity of teaching. They are some 
of them county superintendents and some superintendents 
or principals in city schools, and each school has a higher 
tone, each teacher and pupil a more diligent spirit for, so wise 
and sympathetic supervision. 

Schools in centers of population are naturally the earliest 
to be developed. Many centers now have admirable schools. 
Staunton, Virginia, is worthy of notice for the completeness 
of its public schools and for their uniformity, the schools for 
Negroes corresponding so well in building and general ap- 
pointments with those for white children. An unusual ad- 
vantage is the course here given in drawing, wood-work, sew- 
ing, cooking and nature study for pupils of both races, the 
teachers giving instruction alternately in the different schools. 
The work is unified still further and kept to a high standard 
by weekly teachers' meetings for study and discussion under 
direction of the superintendent Mr. John N. Bader. As an 
illustration of the all around excellence that may be reached 
under the race conditions prevailing in the South this object 



20 

lesson is above all price. It is the embodied solution of many 
a vexed question. 

An interesting feature of the public schools I have visited 
in southern cities is the length of service of the teachers. 
Superintendents have told me that great care is taken in the 
choice of teachers and then it is the rule for them to continue 
a number of years. If the work is not satisfactory^ it is thought 
wiser to point out the deficiencies in a sympathetic spirit and 
put them on a course of self improvement than to replace 
them with others. This gives stability to the teaching force. 
It also promotes mutual confidence and good feeling through- 
out the schoool and in the community, among the pupils and 
their parents as well as with the teachers. Often as the 
superintendent has gone with me from room to room it has 
seemed like being shown around through the different groups 
of a big well governed family. The teachers wore the charm 
of serenity, the children engaged in their lessons as if they 
enjoyed it and the general impression was that of movement 
without friction or irritation. 

These city schools, more particularly those for whites, 
have the air of keeping abreast wath the best thought of the 
times. The walls of their school-rooms are adorned with 
portraits of illustrious men, with engravings of historic events 
and other attractive pictures. The text books are identical 
with those used in the best schools of the North, and so are 
the methods. On closer inquirj^ it will be found, most likely, 
that the principal has had a part of his education at Johns 
Hopkins or Cornell, Cambridge or Chicago, and that a num- 
ber of the teachers have attended summer schools at the 
North and plan to do so again in their coming vacation. So 
these schools seem to have the best that comes from the North 
woven in with the best which belongs to them from the South. 

A subject of growing interest is the introduction of manual 



and industrial training. The last two Annual Reports of the 
State Commissioner of Georgia have laid great stress upon 
this element of education as universally desirable, and the last 
Report of the State Superintendent of South Carolina has 
suggestions of a similar tenor. People in general seem slow 
to accept these conclusions. The impression evidently prevails 
that such training means simply a preparation for drudgery 
or the coarser occupations of business. The truth is not per- 
ceived that industrial and manual discipline has intellect- 
ual and moral a.spects and that the best culture of the whole 
character is impossible without this. 

Every one knows that the early life of Shakespere, Crom- 
well, Lincoln, Washington and a hundred other men who 
were the foremost of their times, was not nurtured to a very 
great extent on courses of study in books. It is known that 
they grew up under conditions in which their hands and feet 
and every bodily power were put to use as well as their 
power of memory and thought. Yet many do not recognize 
that this can have had any thing to do with the development 
of their magnificent manhood. It will be said, quite likely, 
that such greatness is inborn and comes out in spite of every 
disadvantage. One might as well say that the eagle hatched 
and bred among mountain crags has his clearness of eye 
and strength of wing in spite of not having been raised in a 
barn-yard. 

There are condicions of life in which men get from a rough 
environment and from the harsh necessities of every day a 
certain education that may prove the best possible for them. 
In an earlier period the boys and girls of America were in a 
process of constant manual and industrial training such as those 
of to-day can hardly understand. If we could know the details, 
of the home life of Wsishington we should see that he had 



22 



an education, but not much of it in the way boys are edu- 
cated now. Books and school teachers had a small part in it. 
Daily tasks were set to be performed promptly, skillfully 
and thoroughly. He had duties about the house, in the fields, 
and with the stock. There was exercise of the intellect and 
will in handling horses and managing servants. A hundred 
things of this sort went into his education. 

And it was the same with the girls. We are sometimes 
shown a sheet or tablecloth of linen with an initial neatly 
worked in the corner and are told that it was wholly made 
within the walls of some old colonial mansion. The flax was 
grown in a field belonging to the place and when the fibers 
had been removed from the stalks a maiden took it and spun 
it day after day through long weeks into the smooth, even 
thread and then wove it in the loom, and after it was finished 
took her needle and placed her mark in that corner. Was 
there any education here, any training of the mind to quick 
perception, to fine accuracy, to sustained effort, any training 
of will to patience, persistence and self-control? 

That is all gone now. The kind of home education which 
gave us the fathers of the republic and the statesmen, finan- 
ciers, inventors and other masters who succeeded them is gone. 
Manufacture by steam and water-power has taken the place 
of manufacture by hand. Kerosene and electricit}^ have 
taken the place of home-made candles. Mc Cormick reapers 
have taken the place of the scythe. Bicycles and trolley cars 
have displaced the colts which boys once broke and rode, and 
got the finest kind of training for themselves in doing it. All 
these things have passed away and we live in a new world. 
That is why industrial and manual training is now needed in 
our public schools. That is why a modern school education 
is so incomplete without it. We simply want something to 



23 

correspond with that essential part of education which was 
once received in the home but is not now. 

An important requisite is to have a training that is in- 
expensive. Industrial and manual training in this country 
hitherto has been mostl}^ in establishments that are very cost- 
ly. These are invaluable in their way but courses are neces- 
sary that can be taken into any small school. In some coun- 
tries of Europe, like Sweden, this has been a( complished, so 
that we do not tread on wholly untried ground. 

Some places in the South have made a most promising be- 
ginning in this work. Allusion has been made to the schools 
of Staunton, Virginia. Another example is given in Colum- 
bus, Georgia, which is most significant. Only a year ago the 
superintendent, Mr. Carleton B. Gibson, proposed to his 
school board certain plans which he had carefully prepared 
beforehand and was gratified with a ready response. Rooms 
were provided and qualified teachers engaged for both the 
white and Negro schools. Tools were lacking but the inge- 
nuity of the teachers made up for it and classes were formed 
in drawing, wood-work, cooking and other things, which have 
been kept up through the year with remarkable interest and 
success. The outlay was light 'and results have been much 
greater than were anticipated. It is proposed to add to the 
appliances the coming year and extend somewhat the range of 
instruction. 

Another example of great interest is to be seen in Wash- 
ington county, Georgia, where the change reaches to all 
the schools of the county. Here also advanced action has 
been taken for the "consolidation of schools and the pub- 
lic conveyance of children." The story of this movement 
is well given in two letters which I have received from the 
county superintendent, Mr. John N. Rogers. Its phenom- 



24 

enal success is also confirmed by Mr. G. R. Glenn, the 
state commissioner of Georgia. 

Mr. Rogers' letters are as follows: 

Sandersville, Ga. June nth, 1900. 

My Dear Sir; 

Yovirs of the 7th to hand. I take pleasure in giving the in- 
formation asked. It would be impossible for you to understand what 
I have done and what I am doing unless you knew my environment. I 
will overdraw nothing, but bear with me while I attempt to give you 
an idea of the conditions I have set myself to adjust. 

In this county, outside of the little towns, we have eight thousand 
children within school age. These are scattered over a territory of 
more than nine hundred square miles. Children of the two races 
are about equal in number. Separate schools must be provided in 
each community. The total annual amount with which I must do 
for these children is only two dollars each. In a few of the more 
prosperous communities a private subscription is raised to supple- 
ment this pittance. The salaries of our teachers are so small that, 
as a rule, they are not able to take such courses in training schools 
as would fit them for the work in hand. This makes it incumbent 
on me to give them snch instruction as is necessary to prepare them 
for other than regular literary clasa work. This I do as well as my 
limited time will permit. 

I do not prescribe a course of manual training to be followed in 
the same way in every school. If a teacher has some technical 
knowledge of mechanical drawing and no experience with free hand 
I have him teach mechanical drawing. I try to have all that are ca- 
pable of doing reasonably good work in grammar, history, etc. have 
knife work for all the boys. Here we are handicapped, for I have 
not the money to buy knives and many of the boys are not able to 
get them. In our eighty-three schools you would find something for 
every kind of manual training class work that is taught in the 
best schools in the Northern states, but in none of them a full course. 
I have a few teachers of both races that are thoroughly competent to 
do a full line of such work, but they are forced to adapt themselves 
to circumstances and make use of such meagre materials as are 



within reach. With these untoward circumstances, the work is 
no longer an experiment. What has been accomplished proves 
that as much of this kind of mental development is practicable in 
the poorest country school as is expected along old lines under 
the same condition. 

In thinly settled communities, where the number of pupils will 
not warrant a graded school, if there is another school within four 
or five miles we furnish a wagon and hire a horse from some patron 
interested and haul the small school to one that is properly 
graded. This, with us, is a success, though as would be expected, 
the same opposition is encountered that alwaj^s arises to an}- inno- 
vation. We do not haul any pupil who lives within two and a half 
miles of a school. I have established ten high schools in the rural 
districts, where boys and girls are well prepared for college. -So 
anxious are some of our young men to get the advantages of these 
schools that, being unable to pay board, they do their own cooking 
and defray their tuition by such work around the school as the 
teachers may require— the public fund only pa^'ing for common 
school studies. 

I have had my colored teachers assembled for the past two weeks, 
instructing them in clay-modeling, knife work, sewing, free hand 
and mechanical drawin ^, calisthenics, vocal music and nature 
study. With a little money to provide material I know that success 
would await every one of them in the application of this knowledge 
next term. They are a noble set of men and women and I can say 
with pride that nowhere I have ever been in the South have I met 
teachers of that race so well equipped to do their full duty. 

Mr. Rogers' second letter was written in answer to a num- 
ber of specific inquiries suggested by the first and bears 
the date of June 19th, 1900. 

The number of schools in the county has been reduced from one 
hundred and thirteen to eighty-five. In combining two schools it 
has often been the case that a location was obtained which was 
within reach of all the pupils. In one instance where five were 
united only twenty-five pupils were more than two and a half miles 
from the new school. In some instances only one or two families 
are left beyond that limit. The average cost of hauling has been 
about SI. 00 per month for eachpupil hauled. The entire number 



26 

hauled this term was only a few over one hundred, but providing 
conveyance for that small number enables us to discontinue at least 
ten schools. 

In speaking- of manual training- I will refer only to what is done 
in the colored schools, as an attempt to give what the white schools 
are doing might fail to make me clear to you. In the amount and 
kind of work required of each school I am controlled entirely by the 
ability and efficiency of the teacher. In some I have only the sim 
plest lessons in calisthenics, mechanical drawing, clay modeling etc. 
In one school of five teachers all efficient, and over three hundred 
pupils, we have knife-work, clay modeling, mechanical and free 
hand drawing, vocal music, sewing plain and artistic, and easy 
lessons in science. This school has been thus organized only during 
the spring term, so that one would hardly expect more than first 
grade work even from the older pupils. Some of the work, however 
compares favorably with work of the fourth and fifth grades done 
at the Washington city schools, or at the best manual schools in 
Chicago. If 3'ou desire it I can send you some samples of the work 
just as it was done by the pupils withovit any finishing touches by 
the teachers. If we can ever raise the means to build a suitable 
house* we wish to add bench-work and cooking to the present course. 
To develope concentration and to stimulate energy, no other school 
work can compare with what we are doing. The average parent 
is'favorable to the work. 

I regret to say that in this section no donations are ever made to 
primary education. It is easy to get a good subscription to any 
sectarian college but to get money for the education of the masses 
who most need it is perhaps impossible. 

These letters are most suggestive. If all this can be done in 
a county of central Georgia why may not something like it be 
done in a great many counties ? Probably the essential thing 
is more county superintendents of equal ability and force to 
study local conditions and modify their schools to meet the 

*A letter of July 13th. from Mr. Rogers states that this building 
could be put up and partially equipped for $1000. He also states 
that about half of the children are unable to secure knives, pencils 
and the other little things needed for their manual training lessons 



27 

necessities of the case. 

There is an example which teaches the same lesson in the 
mountains of western North Carolina in Buncombe county of 
which Asheville is the center. The people here are nearly all 
white and conditions are about as unlike those in Georgia as 
can well be imagined. The animating spirit of this movement 
is Capt. S. F. Venable who came out of service in the Con- 
federate army with a wound that kept him from following his 
profession as a civil engineer and led him to the calling of a 
teacher. After having trained more than a thousand young 
men he was chosen to superintend the public schools of 
his county. He received his appointment about a year ago 
and set to work immediately to bring the schools to a higher 
mark. The schools of Asheville itself have long held a supe- 
rior rank, and this has made it the more practicable to awa- 
ken a progressive spirit in the region around. 

Two points were held in mind, one extension of the 
school sessions, the other establishment in due time of a 
graded system. Attendance in the schools had been small. 
The young children did not go in winter for lack of 
shoes and warm clothing and the older ones could not go in 
the open season because they were needed about the crops. 
It is proposed to meet this difficulty by having primary 
schools in the warmer weather and those of higher grade 
when it is colder. The summer months in the mountains 
are not excessively warm and it is the better time in all 
respects for the little children to be in school. By having 
the same teachers for both sets of schools it will be possi- 
ble to give them employment for a large part of the year. 
Thus better teachers will be secured and much more ef- 
ficient work. In due time the grades will be more dis- 
tinctly defined m each class of schools and all the work 



28 

systematized.* There will also come a consolidation of 
schools, where practicable, and a development of certain 
Schools to a high academical standard. A good begin- 
ning ha^ been made the first year in lengthening the 
sessions from four months to seven and greatly increas- 
ing the attendance. This has been accomplished without 
any greater amount of school money than was used be- 
fore and simply by having a wiser, more economical and 
more efficient management. 

An account of this work is given in the North Carolina 
Journal of Education for April and May. It seems likely 
to receive much attention and to exert great influence not 
only in Buncombe County but throughout the state. 

There are two educational methods. One is to fix on the 
individual and ask how to give him the completest develop- 
ment leaving out of veiwfor the time every other consider- 
ation. The other is to fix on the community and ask how 
the whole people may be raised to greater intelligence and 
better standards of living. Each of these methods has its 
own appropriate place, but that which is required to- 
day in all the sparsely settled regions of the South is the 
latter method. Until the community is raised the indi- 
vidual is not likely to appear. The community must have 
anew life to give the individual a chance. 

Hence the vital significance of such a development of 
public schools as that which is going on in these two coun- 
ties of North Carolina and Georgia. The people must be given 

*Capt. Venable writes July 16th.; 'Having no legal power to 
force these summer and winter graded schools into use, I have yet 
been able, by going around in the inore intelligent parts of the coun- 
ty, to start over thirty out of one hundred in the summer system of 
four primary grades, and they are doing finely. I have no doubt but 
that all will take it next year. Ten years of these graded duplicate 
schools will abolish ingnorance from this beautiful country." 



29 

a new spirit, a new way of thinking and doing, a new life on 
their own soil and in their own homes, in order to save the 
rural part of the country. And we must look to our educa- 
tional system to give us these. 

I visited a school in Calhoun, Alabama, a few weeks ago 
and was shown a tract of ground belonging to the school 
which was cultivated by the pupils under the direction of 
one of the teachers. In one part of the field I was pointed 
to a number of plots of ground and told that these had 
been treated according to advice received from the govern- 
ment Experiment Station connected with the State College, 
which also furnished the seeds and fertilizers. Other plots 
had been treated in a similar manner the previous year. 
Thus the best results of scientific agriculture were here 
made visible, not only to the pupils who worked the soil, 
but to all the farmers of the neighborhood. 

The following week I went to Albany, where the Ala- 
bama State College is located and was taken over the farm by 
theprofessor of agriculture. He said that some four hun- 
dred experiments were then going on there in the study 
of fertilizers and crops, and showed me scores of demon- 
strations in proof of good tillage and bad tillage. Among 
the most remarkable of these was the treatment of the 
ground with leguminous crops like the cow-pea and the 
hairy vetch. These plants carry on their processes of 
growth in connection with a microbe through which they 
take nitrogen from the atmosphere and leave it in the soil, 
thus restoring the element which is exhausted by repeated 
harvests of wheat or cotton or corn. I saw, side by side in 
the field, patches of corn growing on land that had pre- 
viously raised these legumens and on land which had been 
left without ihem, and in one case the plants were strong 
and vigorous while in the, other they were sickly and starv- 



30 

ed. Here any one could see how the same amount of work 
put upon the same soil would give twice as large a return 
in one case as in the other. 

The possible value of such experiments to a great agri- 
cultural state like Alabama is beyond computation. But 
this professor told me that only a very few of the farmers 
could be got to take any interest in these processes or in theii 
results. With rare exceptions they keep on in their old way , 
raising half crops and taking all the virtue out of their ground 
when they might just as well have good crops and bring up 
their soil to a condition of fertility. Then he spoke of Calhoun 
as one of the exceptional cases in which the purposes of the 
institution were carried into effect. 

Why should not more schools do the same? Imagine a 
hundred schools in different parts of Alabama working on this 
plan, what better educational lessons could be given than those 
taught in this way? And if there were such schools in every • 
county, always in close touch with the Experiment Station 
and alert to every valuable idea coming from that source, we 
can see that the results would be of highest value to the 
whole business of agriculture. Think of energetic, able 
teachers in so many places taking their pupils through lessons 
on plant growth and setting their boys to putting every fresh 
idea into practice on their fathers' plantations. That would 
lend fascination to things that are now uninteresting and give to 
drudgery the joy of a pastime. 

Or better still, think of these teachers as interesting them- 
selves and their pupils in every material interest of the com- 
munity, as well as in other interests that are social and moral, 
giving their attention systematically to a study of the resour- 
ces of the locality, its mineral deposits of coal, iron and stone 
ts forests of pine and cypress and oak, its water power and 



31 

manufacturing facilities, its adaptation to market gardening 
and stock raising, mastering all knowledge of this kind and 
filling the minds of their pupils with it — how it would change 
the whole life of those boys and girls and give to their homes 
a new atmosphere. It would temper the restlessness so com- 
mon among young people and it would check the hanker- 
ing for a factory -village or a city. It would hold their am- 
bitions and hopes to wise channels, engage them in mani- 
fest duties, and habituate them to a share in productive en- 
terprises within their reach. That would mean for them 
prosperity and happiness and it would mean everything 
good to the rural community. 

A business man of Georgia told me recently of a purchase 
he had made of forest lands. The owner had come and urged 
him to buy it for the hard woods on the tract. An expert 
was sent down to look over the timber and reported that the 
hard woods were of no account because they were so smalj 
but the cypresses on the ground were magnificient. This was 
told to the owner, when he replied, "O yes, there are lots of 
cypresses but they are so big you can't get them out." The 
purchase was quickly made and the gentleman said he would 
not take a hundred thousand dollars for his bargain. Things 
of this kind are continually happening in these times. 

One of Israel's prophets says; "My people are destroyed for 
lack of knowledge. ' ' Never were these words more true than 
to-day of any people who are behind in intelligence. The peo- 
ple need to know the value of their big trees, the value of 
their ground, of their rocks full of mineral wealth, and how 
to appropriate these values to the improvement of their well- 
being, their material well-being, and then of their moral and 
spiritual so closely connected with the material. 

This is the purpose of public schools, to give the knowledge 
ihat will help people to live the highest life possible, and to 



32 

do this in the particular environment to which the}' belong. 
Some schools have caught sight of such a purpose and are 
steadily pursuing it, becoming thereb}^ centers of beneficent 
power. Our practical- problem is to cultivate this education- 
al spirit through our whole school sj^stem. 



A FEW SUGGESTIONS UPON THE OBJECTS OF THE 
CAPON SPRINGS EDUCATIONAL CONFER- 
ENCE, AS SEEN BY A NORTHERN 
BUSINESS MAN. 

Robert C. Ogden, New York City. 



That the North has much assistance to render to the South 
in matters of pubHc education will perhaps be frankly admit- 
ted by intelligent people from both sections. How this assist- 
ance is to be rendered is a practical question, at once delicate 
and difficult of solution. It is a matter of sentiment. North- 
ern helpfulness will disappear if it is tendered from a wrong 
angle, or based upon wrong premises. The feeling of the 
Southern people must be kindly and receptive if Northern ed- 
ucational experience is to have helpful value. 

If a lack of frankness underlies any relation between the 
once estranged sections upon any questions, educational or 
other, all coming together will be in vain, — association a. 
sham, conference a delusion. This frankness requires admis- 
sion of established historical facts, but corresponding kindli- 
ness and wisdom alike forbid the fruitless discussion of settled 
issues. 

The "War between the States" decided the points in dis- 
pute. The only conditions that Justice could demand of the 
defeated was an acceptance of the decision rendered by the 
sword — the Court of last resort. Just at this point came a 
great source of irritation. Public opinion at the North de- 
manded that the people of the South should come back as re- 
pentant rebels, returning prodigals, confessing wrong-doing 
in sack-cloth and ashes. This demand was wrong. I admit 
it as a most positive offender. The proud and sensitive people 
of the South resented that demand, and the withheld confi-. 



34 

dence of the North in the loyal obedience of the South to the 
war's decisions was an aggravation that prolonged distrust 
and delayed reconciliation. But that belongs to the past. 

And with the past, so far as all present interests of human- 
ity are concerned, should be buried all questions, once real, but 
not now vital, having to do with the right of secession, with 
slavery, with the unsavory record of reconstructing, with the 
suspicion and doubt of post-bellum alienation. Practical bus- 
iness judgment decides powerfully and positively against the 
resurrection of the settled issues of a dead past. They have 
interest historically in enabling the man of affairs and the stu- 
dent of social conditions to ascertain present facts, but, to the 
mind of the American patriot, have no further popular func- 
tion, and require no discussion. 

This position found frequent illustration in this presence 
one year ago. It was said here once and again by the most 
honored members of this Conference that while "it was use- 
less to discuss the causes, the fact remained that the domestic 
institution peculiar to the South before the War was opposed 
to general popular education. ' ' 

The wise physician has nothing to do with the reckless ex- 
posure that precipitated or created disease. His purpose is to 
cure the patient. And so now, the end to be attained is the 
making up for lost time, the overtaking of the lost century in 
the education of the plain people throughout this Southland. 
Time is the essence of this great moral contract, and relief 
from the influences that blight and retard prompt, and also 
complete enlightenment is demanded by every motive of in- 
telligent humanity. 

The foregoing suggestions would be superfluous if the in- 
fluence of the discussion were limited to the small circle here 
assembled. But this Conference is expected to speak to a 
large audience. The application, therefore, of business meth- 



35 

ods to its deliverances demands that its utmost power should 
be exercised for the elimination from inter-sectional discussion 
of educational topics all idle talk upon the closed volumes of 
the past. 

Talk has, by waste of time and dissipation of intellectual 
force, destroyed many a good business enterprise. Many a 
good cause has been talked into hopeless lethargy, stupor, 
death. It will be a great moral triumph if people everywhere 
can be brought, in respect of all questions of public import, to 
the suppression of inconsequent personal opinion. What possi- 
ble difference can it make to the question of education of chil- 
dren of school age in Jones County, Alabama, what Jenkins, 
the store-keeper thinks of lyce or Grant as soldiers, Calhoun 
or Sumner as statesmen? But; if Jenkins chooses so to do, 
he can put force behind the schoolmaster, and can fill the 
school-board with energy. If he drops talk about his heroes 
and finds out something about how a village school should be 
managed, his vanity will differ but his town will gain. 

Quite similar is the function of Johnson in New York to- 
ward the common schools in the South. I^et his best intelli- 
gence take account of facts as they are, not concerning him- 
self with antecedent causes. Thus bringing to the question 
practical sympathy, free from depreciatory criticism, he will 
command the respect that will make kindly sentiment a broad 
highway upon which he may advance in useful service to the 
people he would and should serve. 

In my judgment, as a business man, the Capon Springs 
Conference can find a wide sphere of salutary influence by 
bringing the whole subject of popular education urgently be- 
fore the business men of the South as a business proposition, 
touching very closely their individual and collective interest. 
It is repeating a mere truism to state that the prosperity of 



36 

the community depends upon progress, progress upon intelli- 
gence, intelligence upon education. 

To make this presentation is not to degrade the motive of 
education to a basis of mere money getting. Money is the 
measure of value in several different ways. Money is a guage 
of prosperity. When Alabama bankers seek Wall Street note 
brokers that they may invest money in Northern Commercial 
paper, an accumulation of capital beyond local demands is in- 
dicated. It is evidence of prosperity. 

Property is estimated in money measure. The increase of 
wealth is the evidence of that prosperity which must underlie 
all intellectual growth. Literature and the fine arts depend 
for production and comsumption upon prosperity. Higher in- 
stitutions of learning depend upon wealth. The book-seller 
does not thrive in the atmosphere of poverty. The artist 
starves his art or himself, or both when men have no margin 
of money beyond the demands of carking care for physical 
need. 

Intelligence, by increasing refinement, produces more and 
greater personal needs. Progress creates means and develops 
wants, brings the need to the money and the money to the 
need, thus, by the operation of an infallible economic law, 
containing within itself the principles of true mercy, is twice 
blessed to both giver and receiver, the consumer and the dis- 
tributor. 

Beneath all is universal intelligence. Thus, make the busi- 
ness man, to see that the philosopher's stone is enclosed with- 
in the common school, and that it only waits the touch of his 
sympathetic approval to reveal its brilliancy and, through the 
magic power of popular education, evoke forces that make for 
progress,- progress that radiates wealth, refinement, intellect- 
ual power; progress that makes life happier by lessening the 
strain of anxiety and care; progress that gives intelligence 



37 

to the state, and commands respect for the town. I^et the busi- 
ness men be made to understand that bright and smiling boys 
and girls, finding their way to knowledge through the hap- 
pier methods of modern education, are at once the jewels of 
the family and the state, the foundation of broadening trade 
and increasing profit. Then a force will be evoked and the 
crowning power realized that shall make the South-land the 
rival of the North and the West in the generous emulation 
of intelligence, good citizenship, and the noblest American- 
ism. 

At the opening of this paper I intimated that the business 
man was out of place in such a gathering as this. I want to 
modify that statement. He has a place to fill and a duty to 
perform in the educational system of our land. Well and 
properly may he sit and mode.stly refrain from advice to pro- 
fessional pedagogy; But from the practical side of life he 
maj' tell the teacher what type of education the world needs- 
its method the trained teacher must supply, but, in the defi- 
nite aims to be secured, the plain business man may often be 
the teacher of the teacher. 

And the plain man of affairs needs to be within the edvica- 
tional circle that by his very presence he ma}^ remind even 
higher education that all training ot the intellect should have 
only for its end and aim the good of the people. Art for art's 
sake is a heresy. Learning for its own sake debases, does not 
lift. Intellectual development that makes man superior in his 
own esteem elevates the mind at the sacrifice of character. The 
world is run by the two talent men, and the two talent men 
must be recognized, if intellectual life is to have a healthful 
growth. Of all the sham aristocracies, the meanest is the in- 
tellectual. Its type is lower than that of mere money arro- 
gance, as the sharpness of its sting is more bitter and keen. 



38 

The highest institutions and the most cultivated persons 
should find the noblest exercise of their greatest power in 
such service as will most surely lift the mass. When the two 
talent and the ten talent men meet on a common level of ser- 
vice for humanity, the association is ideal. The presence of 
each is the reminder to the other. The practical business 
men, working out affairs in life with heart and conscience, 
may be the equal or superior of the philosopher who, in his 
study, formulates and records the theories which the intel- 
lectual man has already put into working form 

There was a deep principle, a lofty compliment and an un- 
conscious humor in the remark of an ignorant colored woman 
concerning a very brilliant and accomplished white woman af- 
ter a first meeting:"! just love her because she's so common." 

One other suggestion occurs to me as a man of the business 
class. The South is now enjoying a period of very unusual 
prosperity, her fields are bringing forth their increase, and 
her agricutural products are finding large and profitable mar- 
kets; her manufacturing industries are expanding with start- 
ling rapidity, her mines are producing riches with their re- 
markable output, her forests are bringing unexpected profits 
to land-owners and lumber-men, her sanitariums and winter 
resorts are reaping rich rewards from seekers for health and 
pleasure, transportation and commerce are giving employment 
to hundreds of thousands of her people and paying good inter- 
est upon capital. 

The moment is opportune for such an appeal to the in- 
telligent self-interest of the practical men of affairs, the 
business men of the South, as will rouse them to a higher 
sense of responsibility concerning this vital underlying 
question of popular education. As a class they have much 
to learn, and most especially should they realize that to 



39 

them is committed, more than to any other class, the re- 
sponsibilit}' for the solution of the grave social and econom- 
ic questions peculiar to their section, and the other gen- 
eral questions that concern the welfare of ihe entire coun- 
try. 

Echoing down recent decades has come to us of the la- 
ter generations, the cry begun years before our internecine 
strife, "No North, no South, no East, no West." For 
years its echoes were in timid whispers, but now again the 
enthusiasm of a united born-again patriotism swells the 
phrase in a national chorus of a revived and glorious hope. 
God grant that the rich years held within the grasp of a fu- 
ture as yet unknown may find the full realization of the 
glorious ideal. If it does not, let no man charge the failure 
upon divine Providence. Within our own hands, we hold 
both the prophecy and the power for its realizalion. Pop- 
ular education, mental, moral, and industrial is the 
solvent. 

The four sectional phrases will cease to describe diver- 
gent interests when with the mind's eye each section will 
see the interests of all, and when the responsive- heart will 
throb with affection for all men everywhere. Spread over 
all the land the active and equipped mind, open to the four 
winds of heaven, and narrow provincialism will fly to cover 
before the glance of an intelligence that will claim a com- 
mon ownership in art and in literature, a common earnest- 
ness that this land shall be the best, as it is the most favor- 
ed in all the earth, and an abiding hope that the school- 
master and the Christian are to secure a distinction for the 
American of the future more resplendent than the imagina- 
tion of the present day will deem possible. This is a day 
in which the cry may go out from Capon Springs, borne in 



40 

the June sunlight upon the gentle breezes of the North to 
the business men of the South, "Stop, Look, Listen." 
Then, when he has stopped, seen, heard the message of that 
Conference, may he have grace to Push, Prophesy, Per- 
form. 

These crude suggestions contain my poor attempt to obey 
Dr. Curry's command, and, for their shortcomings, I beg 
you in the words of Whittier to, 

Read between the lines, 

The grace of half-fulfilled designs. 

Nbw York, June 24th, 1900. 



ART IN EDUCATION. 

Miss Louise J. Smith, Randolph-Macon ColIvEGE, 

lyYNCHBURG, Va. 



It is generally understood that artists are not speakers, con- 
sequently I am sure due allowance will be made for those who 
try. We who habitually express ourselves in form and color 
feel limited when we attempt to put our thoughts and emo- 
tions in words. If this fact were universally known I doubt 
not that loquacious gentlemen would insist upon their wives 
studying art at once! When Dr. Curry asked me to give this 
paper my first impulse w^as to say "I'll do anything except 
read a paper;" but before there was time to give expression 
to such a thought my timidity was absorbed in the strong de- 
sire to promote art and I felt willing to attempt anything for 
the cause, so I refused not. Afterwards my courage wavered 
and a friend was appealed to for advice which came in this 
form. "Of course you are going to give that paper. You 
must, because you know so few of us xeally have onr hearts 
in our work and that alone is qualification enough." I hesi- 
tated no longer, and come to you now claiming only this quali- 
fication, my heart is in this work as Dr. Curry and Mr. Ogden 
can testify. 

Permit me to quote from my friend Mr. Henry T. Bailey, 
Supervisor of drawing in the State of Massachusetts: "The 
end of all education is culture, — that which conditions and 
crowns the larger, more abundant life. 
A man of culture 

Must be musicfcl, 

Tremulous, impressional. 

Alive to gentle influence 

Of landscape and of sky, 



42 

And tender to the spirit touch 

Of man's or maiden's eye; 

But to his native centre fast 

Shall into future fuse the past 
And the world's flaming fates in his own mold recast." 
In other words, a man of culture is sensitive to impressions^ 
observant, sympathetic, and yet has a potent personality cap- 
able of original deeds. The aim of instruction in drawing is- 
culture through the senses by which we apprehend the forms 
of things. The ends to be secured are sensitiveness to beauty, 
an intelligent appreciation of beautiful things, the power tO' 
make things beautiful and to reveal beauty to others. 

To compass such ends a course in drawing must be shaped 
upon the broadest lines; beginning with the simple notions, 
the vague concepts, and crude tastes of the child, it should grad- 
ually unfold for him the wo'dd beautiful; firding him impotent 
in graphic expression, it should develop his latent powers to- 
their utmost. Art has been woefully neglected by us as a na- 
tion but we cannot afford to do so any longer. There is a 
strong growing demand for it and it is our duty as educators; 
to see that proper instruction be given and that all hum- 
bug and deception under the mantle of art be done away with. 
As long as we are satisfied with what we are we may never 
hope to become better. It is not surprising that our friends 
who have not studied art are prejudiced against it as many 
educators are because so many daubs have been made under 
the name of "art," when hundreds of students have been al- 
lowed to carry home from "Female Boarding Schools" large 
and wonderful pictures copied by the students with "finishing- 
touches" from the teacher's brush. Something like this, a 
picture of fruit a yard long, a vegetable piece to match, with 
companion pieces of game and fish, and theii happiness is 



43 

complete if they chance to find a study representing little ne- 
groes eating watermelon which they can copy since they are 
limited to cheap reproductions of what others have done. All 
these must be handsomely framed anH hung in the dining-room. 
A number of such reproductions which are quite as bad, but 
representing more sentimental subjects, framed in handsome 
gilt for the parlors, relieved now and then by brass tambourines, 
porcelain plaques and velvet or tapestry banners. But these pic- 
tures, if such they may be called, have been "hand painted" 
by precious hands of beloved children, and I assure you in 
these homes a Raphael, a Velasquez or a Leonardo da Vinci 
would be skied in their favor. Oh, let us stop such prostitu- 
tion of art! I often wonder what can be the parents' object 
in having their children taught such trash. If they really 
want them to lea_n art they should know that that is not ar-t; 
if it is for the purpose of getting pictures for the home (since 
I have known some art teachers have had parents bring igno- 
rant children and at the same time dimensions for pictures 
needed, to fill spaces on the walls with a request that "these 
pictures be painted first" ) let me suggest that if they would 
invest the money, which was designed for their daughter's 
painting lessons, in Copley prints, Braun's photographs or 
any good reproduction of master- pieces the artistic atmos- 
phere of that home would be raised fifty per cent. 

Every child should be taught to draw and paint as it is to 
read and write that it may better express itself; for after all, 
the power of education lies in the true expression of ourselves. 
At first, children should be given a quantity of different col- 
ored paper with a pair of blunt scissors and allowed the liber- 
ty of independent Americans. Later, they should have instruc- 
tion but so tactfully administered that the little ones are not 
conscious of being taught. They should be carefully instruct- 



44 

ed in well graded exercises from the time the}' enter school 
till they leave. About ten years ago the Virginia Board of 
Education adopted a resolution requiring drawing to be taught 
in the public schools, but I am sorry to say, that in most cases 
it has fallen into "nocuous desuetude." 

It does not seem appropriate to give here an outline of the 
work from year to year as might be done for a Board of 
Education or teachers who wish to do this work, but the de- 
sired and natural results may be suggested. 

High school graduates should be able to draw and paint 
interesting clusters of flowers, model in clay fruits and vege- 
tables such as apples, potatoes etc.; to make creditable designs 
for wall paper, ceilings and borders, calicoes, oilcloth, ribbons, 
cravats and stuffs of various kinds. They should be able to 
make passable compositions thereby becoming familiar with 
many of the principles which underlie all good art. Above 
all things they must be taught to do original w^ork and they 
should never be permitted, much less encouraged, to copy pic- 
tures or their teachers' technic. Every conscientious teacher 
must realize his duty toward students along this line. If 
there were five hundred children here and I were to give the 
same leaf to each child every drawing would be as different as 
the five hundred faces and temperaments. If there be one 
thing which we all value more than any thing else it \s per- 
sonality. We love our friends because of the possession of 
that something which makes them different from others. 
Just here lies the root of so many failures. People are not 
satisfied to be themselves and are ready to throw to the 
winds the most precious gift God has given them and sell 
their birthright for a mess of .pottage. Eet us spare no pains 
to develop this selfhood! We should have teachers trained for 
this work. Until we do, we may not hope for better results. 



45 

However, it is a sad fact that in many cases where teachers 
are capable of teaching from objects, nature and life, public 
sentiment demands that they teach what they know to be 
false. Nevertheless I do not feel that one is ever justified in 
teaching what he knows to be wrong. To be frank, all so- 
called art teachers, who can only teach copying, should not 
'be allowed to teach, and encouragement should be given 
those who teach from nature. 

In our Academies, Seminaries and Institutes, the students 
should be drilled in casts till they are able to draw heads and 
busts; and paint in water colors or oils, studies of flowers, fruits 
and other still-life subjects. It is often advisable to have stu- 
dent of this grade use pastels as their medium for color work, 
since its application more closely resembles that of their char- 
coal work. They should be able to sketch from nature and 
make origmal compositions showing now an understand- 
ing of the laws which underlie this work. In response to 
letters to the Principals of the majority of such schools in 
Virginia, I have not heard of a single institution where copy- 
ing is forbidden; though I am glad to say that sorr.e are 
awakening to the importance of original work and are using 
their influence to promote it. , It is sad, but comparatively 
few states can boast of better work outside of special art 
schools. 

Art teaching in College should begin where the Academy 
finishes, that is the students should begin on busts and full 
length casts and continue this work for the first year, sus- 
taining the interest now and then with appropriate work in 
color. Afterward their work should be entirely from life, ena- 
bling them at the end of their college course to paint a cred- 
itable head. Their composition should be of a much high- 
er grade, not only must they express knowledge and ability 



46 

but also sentiment. I am sure that our friends who have 
charge of other departments would be glad to extend the 
hand of welcome if they realized the value of serious art 
work and have genuine technical art recognized as degree 
work in college. When this is done much will be gained 
towards establishing an appreciation of true art. Let us 
look into it and -see why this should be done. It is not' 
fair that those whom God has destined to be artists should 
be forced out of college when they long for a broad educa- 
tion because of this prejudice which exists on account of 
the before mentioned daubers. We so often hear it said 
that musicians and artists are not educated along other lines. 
Those who say that, surely have never known a real live mas- 
ter. I often wish that all of us could know some of the 
greatest artists and see how such men are honored in the old 
country. Even if it were true that our artists are not ed- 
ucated, it would be no wonder since there is no institution in 
our dear land, as far as I have been able to ascertain, where 
one can get both classic and artistic training on the same foot- 
ing. Every one knows that no one expects to use in life the 
exact mathematical problems learned in college ; but rather 
it is the power which is gained by such concentration and 
effort that gives them their educational value. To paint a 
simple study properly one must have his power of attention 
so trained that he may seem to attend to many things at 
the same time. Should his attention slack so there be one 
false note, why the whole is false — this is what we call val- 
ues. No one would say that such work does not give men- 
tal training. A college president once was lamenting the 
fact that his professors Magnified their own departments 
and were unwilling to consider education as a whole. 
"Therein" said I, "they stiow a lack of art training forbad 



47 

they been drilled in values they would know the inportance 
of keeping each thing in its proper place in relation to others. " 
Ever since, the president has shown more respect for art. 
College influence is good for us and more than others art stu- 
dents need such surroundings during this period of their 
lives. Some educators, who have not studied art feel that 
they have done their whole duty when they say to students 
"Stop your art till you finish your college education and 
then you can specialize in it." If that be best for the stu- 
dent then take art out of the college at once. It would be 
fairer than to pretend to have it there kept down as it is. 
But, it should be there I think as an elective that those who 
feel drawn to the arts may get an appreciation and under- 
standing of art by taking such a course without being afraid 
of becoming artists just as no one nowadays would consider 
himself a mathematician or an author for having completed 
college courses in mathematics or English. • Yet no one 
would say that a prospective mathematician should not be 
allowed to have any mathematics in college just because he 
intends to make it his profession and all professional train- 
ing should be gotten after college days. Everybody, I be- 
lieve, should have some knowledge of art though few should 
become artists, but certainly those who do intend to should 
not stop their work for the four years of college life. 

Those who think deeply upon such subjects say that 
America will be the next art centre in the world. It is free- 
ly talked of in Paris that the strongest students in the art 
schools are Americans. One of the most famous Parisian art 
critics told me that there was no doubt in his mind that 
America would be the centre of art when France looses that 
honor. "Why, ' ' said he, ' 'the American men are our strongest 
students. Even a prize student who came to us from the 



48 

south of France, where he had been taught by one of our own 
professors, is surpassed by many American men." He asked 
why our men were such hard workers? "There are many 
reasons," I said, "first it is simply a natural manifestation 
of the energy and grit of a new country in whose people the 
blood of many nations is mingled; then too, our men have 
another stimulus. There is nothing which our women value more 
in our American men than the very qualities which they gain by 
hard work." He expressed great surprise and said he was 
more sure than ever of our success. He may have confidence 
in the opinion of those who are recognized authorities and re- 
joice that our country will some day have this honor though 
none of us may see it. However, the character that Ameri- 
can art will have depends upon what we do for it now. We 
so often hear it said that French art is depraved in thought 
(often ignorantly exaggerated) though clever and strong, and 
that English art, as a whole, is pure in thought but tiresome 
and not strong. What we want is to avoid the faults of both. 
No man has the power to paint a picture by himself for all 
the influences which surround him and have surrounded 
his ancestors contribute to that picture. If we be indifferent 
to the influences of our young people we are largely respon- . 
sible for what they will produce. 

I have a plan for accomplishing something in this direc- 
tion and feel unusually fortunate in having an opportunity 
of talking about it to a distinguished assemblage. As has 
been said before, I think all public school and academy 
students should be required to do some drawing and color 
work and that college students should be allowed to have 
genuine art work as an elective. Yet every one must know 
that if students can see what they have done that their ap- 
preciation of art is not to be envied. Therefore I should like 



49 

to see the walls of the public school and academj^ filled with 
good reproductions of master-pieces; and in college I want an 
annual loan exibitiOn open from one to two months free to all 
students. This exhibition must contain only the best work 
that is done anywhere, and I have been assured by some of the 
most distinguished Parisian and American artists that such 
work may be secured with proper influence where we have the 
means to bear all transportation expenses and insurance a- 
gainst damages. Of course this exhibition might vary from 
ten to one hundred pictures according to our means but there 
would be no excuse for having a single piece of bad work. 
An artist, or some one capable of judging should go to the 
Salons, art exhibitions and visit private studios and ask for 
only the very best. As an inducement to these artists to lend 
their pictures it should be understood that each year the best 
pictures should be bought for a permanent collection which 
will belong to the college. At the same time I would like to 
have in another room an exhibition by amateurs open to all 
contributors whose work was of sufficient merit to be accept- 
ed by a competent jury. My object would be to raise each 
year the standard of our amateurs. For this reason I would 
like to offer several prizes in their department. With such 
exhibitions in colleges where there are from two to eight hun- 
dred students who are giving from three to four years of their 
lives to education I can guarantee that an enthusiastic capa- 
ble teacher can create among these students an appreciation 
of art which will naturally increase with their development. 
This has never been tried in any school or country, as far 
as I know, ^ut I have spoken of it privately to many educators 
whose hearty appreciation has strengthened me in my purpose 
to see this executed. I think more good would be accom- 
plished by having such an exhibition in a college than in a cit5^ 



50 

For if you have often visited our Corcoran in Washington or 
Metropolitan in New York you know that a majority of the 
visitors pay a hurried Httle visit of from one half hour to an 
hour an a half which time is often spent looking at the worst 
work in the gallery, should it chance to represent some senti- 
mental subject, else much of the time is spent in looking at 
the other sight-vSeers and just before leaving to or three glan- 
ces are given to works of art as a parting gift, after which 
they go out into the world feeling capable of commending or 
condemning pictures. Not for a moment do I mean to say 
that we should not have public collections in our cities. On the 
contrary I should like to see every city own one and if our 
politicians appreciated art half as much as some other things, 
it would not be long before each cit}'^ could boast of a good 
collection. If we could, during our student days, get the 
proper knowledge and appreciation of art we w^ould at matu- 
rity be capable of deriving real pleasure and benefit from good 
public collections. The plan which I have given you for se- 
curing an appreciation of art among our college students will 
naturally require much money and I can only hope to see it 
perfected by donations /(?r tJiis pii7'pose from generous indi- 
viduals who love culture and art in all its strength, truth and 
beauty and want to give it to our young people that their lives 
may be happier and more useful. 

If you knew the struggles, heartaches and temptations of 
the host of American art students in Paris as I do, having 
studied there nearly five years you would leave no stone un 
turned to satisfy, in our own land, this longing desire of our 
young people for real art training. The natural progress of 
the nation demands it and our people could not help it if they 
would for the power of a nations development governs indi- 
vidual will. If the history of our nation may be foreseen by 



51 

the light which others nations give us we may know that our 
influence will last longest through our art. It is hard in this 
rushing progressive age to realize that the time will come 
when we shall be valued by what we have been, but it seems 
to be law under which we live. Since artists must play 
such a prominent role in the history of our country it is most 
important that they should live surrounded by our best na- 
tional influences that they may perpetuate the true American 
spirit. It is however a sad fact that many of our artists are 
forced out of their country and even from the bosom of their 
families on account of a lack of support and sympathy in their 
work. Because of these facts I make this plea that art be 
recognized as an elective in college so that artists may have 
not only the intellectual benefit of the literary and scientific 
courses but also the moral influences of proper college life at 
the time when character is being moulded. 



SOME SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE KIND OF EDUCA- 
TION NEEDED FOR THE NEGRO RACE. 

Pre;sident F. G. Woodworth of Tougaloo 
University, Mississippi. 



I St. Such education as will increase the economic value of 
the Negro to himself and to the state. This justifies the stress 
laid upon the different forms of agricultural and industrial 
education, the development of household science etc. 

2nd. Such as will develop a true moral and religious life a- 
mong the Negroes. Naturally religious they need correct 
conceptions, and the co-ordination of religion and morality. 
Here the chief stress should be placed by all the denomina- 
tional schools. The formation of character in the race is 
recognized by its ablest leaders as the most important thing. 
The Bible Training School, or Theological School, whose 
chief aim is grounding preachers in the fundamentals of the 
English Bible and of Christian morality is a chief need. 

3rd. Such as will conduce to a truer citizenship — a right 
conception of the duties and of the rights of the citizen. 
Though having little political power at present and probably 
not to have anj^ large degree of it for manj^ decades, the Ne- 
gro will become a more prominent factor in the civic life as he 
increases in property and develops in character. Under the 
suffrage restrictions, requiring education and taxpaying, the 
younger generation will come into the suffrage in a gradual 
and purely normal way. That this may be done intelligent- 
ly large attefition should be given in all of the larger and 
higher schools, and in all public schools so far as possible. 



53 

to such branches as civics, history, economics. An intelligent, 
property holding Negro, with a somewhat clear idea of his 
duties to the state will be a conservative factor in Society. 

4th. Such education as will fit the competent for a true 
leadership. More and more is the demand growing for com- 
petent men in the professions and higher walks of life among 
the Negroes. They are needed as stimuli to their fellows. 
Having a broader outlook and a greater strength the}- can up- 
lift and develop their own people as those of another race 
cannot. The largest progress of the race will come from 
leaderships of its own — from men who <:an feel the heartthrob 
of the race as we of the Anglo-Saxon race cannot. No sa- 
vior of a race was ever of an alien race. This necessity of 
leadership justifies the putting within the reach of the Ne- 
groes who are fit, the highest possible culture. It justifies 
the higher and the highest education for him. The schools 
in the South offering the higher education are few; those who 
attend them are not many in number; but the work is 
fully justified by the need of to-day, looking toward the 
highest interests of both races of to-morrow and the genera- 
tions to come. 

5th. Education along the lines indicated will enable the 
Negro to develop a full and high type of social life which 
shall have in it that which will satisfy his social cravings. 
As matters are to-day the cultured Negro stands alone. Few 
in his race are his equals. He cannot find social Hfe with the 
white race. The need of to-day, at least, is a social life a- 
mong the Negroes that will be on a par with the best social 
life among the whites. Such a life is already developing. 
Whether a common social life will ever come between the ra- 
ces no man can tell. God alone knows and he will direct the 
affairs of men as they should be directed. But this at least 
seems clear that humanity and Christianity alike demand 



54 

that we put within the grasp of the negro those things 
which will enable him to attain in economic, religious, civic, 
literary and social life the highest things of which he may 
be capable. 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF THE HIGHER EDUCA- 
tion of the negro. 

President Horace Bumstead, Atlanta 
University, Ga. 



All education is practical which can be turned to use and 
made productive of some desired end. In the education of the 
American Negro, there are certain ends which all good people 
agree in desiring. The appalling illiteracy of the masses 
must be reduced. The criminal tendencies of the lower clas- 
ses must be checked. The productive capacity of the wage-earn- 
ers must be increased. The domestic life of the race must be 
improved. Their citizenship must be safe-guarded and en- 
nobled. The development of personal character must be stimu- 
lated, — this last the most important of all. 

It is idle to suppose that all these desired ends can be se- 
cured by any single form of education without the co-opera- 
tion of other forms. No man can wisely shout "Eureka,'' 
and proclaim the race problem solved by any one method of 
training. The problem is too manifold, too complex, too in- 
tricate to admit of solution by a single panacea. 

Moreover, the American Negro is in condition to receive, in 
due proportion, a much greater variety of education than many 
peop'e have supposed. We have too long made the mistake of 
regarding the race as one homogeneous mass, instead of recogniz- 
ing the diversity of its different classes. The four millions set free 
by the Civil War have grown probably to nine millions, or 
nearly as many as the entire population of the United States 
in 1820. So large a population as this, mostly born in freedom 



56 

and growing up for thirty-five 3'ears in contact with American 
civilization, could not fail, in that length of time, to differen- 
tiate itself into classes of varying character and ability, illustra- 
tating many different grades of progress. No careful obser- 
ver can deny that this differentiation has taken place. The 
more hopeful classes may still be small relatively to the whole 
mass of the Negroes, but they are too large absolutely, and 
they are potentially too important a factor in the solution of 
the great problem, to be safely ignored. 

With full recognition, then, of the varied forms of educa- 
tional effort needed and with no desire to disparage any of 
them, 'let me come to my task of presenting the practical val- 
ue of the higher education, and I will ask you to measure 
this value as related, first, to the individual Negro himself, 
and second to the social group or mass of Negroes of whom 
the individual forms a part. 

For the individual Negro who so far rises above the com- 
mon mass of his race as to be fitted to receive it, I believe 
that the higher education has a pre-eminently practical 
value. 

If the term "higher education" needs definition, let me 
say that I have in mind such education as an average white 
boy gets when he "goes to college." I mean a curriculum 
in which the humanities are prominent, and in which intercourse 
with books and personal contact with highly educated teach- 
ers constitute the chief sources of power. Let us, further- 
more, understand such a curriculum to be handled not in any 
dry-as-dust spirit, but with the most modern methods of 
teaching, and with the most direct and practical apphcation to 
the needs of modern life as they will be encountered by the 
students pursuing it. 

There is a practical advantage in the mere offering of such 



57 

an educational opportunity to the individual Negro of excep- 
tional ability. So long as it is denied, he will ask, "On what 
ground do you set a limit to my educational progress?" If we 
answer ' ' Because the masses of your race are not fitted to 
take a college course," he can reply; "That is a principle of 
exclusion which you do not apply to your own race, and why 
should you apply it to mine?" If we say, "Because we doubt 
your individual ability to take it," he may answer: "That is 
a matter which only a fair trial can determine, and I ask the 
privilege of testing my ability as an individual." How can 
we justly refuse such a plea as this? If the claimant really 
has exceptional ability, he ought to have the exceptional op- 
portunity. If he does not possess such ability, it is still 
worth something to set before him the open door of the higher 
education, for then, if he does not enter it, the responsibility 
is entirely his own. In education there is no principle more 
just or wise than this: To every Negro youth, as to every 
white youth, an educational opportunity commensurate with 
his ability as an individual. 

Let us not forget in this connection to how large an extent 
it is the province of all colleges to discover talent. For many 
boys and girls the studies of the grammar and even of the 
high school are insufficient to reveal their most marked apti- 
tudes and point out the most promising path of usefulness. 
It is only as they are confronted with a college curriculum 
that this revelation is made in the case of very many. It is 
sometimes said that any bright Negroes in the South who 
want a college education can come to Northern colleges and 
get it. This may be true as regards the very brightest who 
can feel the attraction of an educational opportunity a thous- 
and miles away and obtainable there only at high cost. But 
for a much larger number, only the inexpensive college of the 



58 

vicinage, within easy reach of home, can either discover tal- 
ent, or train when it discovered. 

A very practical service which a college education renders 
to the individual Negro is to teach him to think. The power 
of rational thought is one which the past history of the race 
has not tended to cultivate. Neither savagery in Africa nor 
slavery in America were favorable to it. As a slave the Ne- 
gro was trained not to think. The thinking Negro was a 
dangerous Negro. The master and the overseer did his 
thinking for him, regulating his movements and planning 
his work, and the more the Negro surrendered his self-di- 
rection and became a facile machine in their hands, the bet- 
ter slave he was. This is an unavoidable feature in every 
system of human slavery. 

But the moment freedom begins and the responsibility for 
one's life and work is transfeired from an outside authority 
to the individual himself, the power of rational and consecu- 
tive thinking becomes an absolute necessity. It is the lack 
of this power which constitutes one of the chief elements of 
weakness in the Negro of to-day. The studies of the usual 
college curriculum are especially fitted to develop it. Sla- 
very did much to make the Negro a worker, and since sla- 
very ended we have all been very properly concerned to 
make him more and more a skilled worker. But we have 
been far too little concerned to make him a careful thinker. 

Incidentally to this, a very practical advantage which comes 
to the individual Negro through a college education is the dis- 
covery of how large a part of the world's vork is performed 
by the world's thinkers. The delusion that work of the hands 
is the only work worthy of the name cannot remain long in 
the mind of a college student. In the study of history, and 
science, and language, and philosophy, and mathematics, he 



59 
discovers again and again how the chief workers in those fields 
have been foremost among the promoters of the world's pro- 
gress, ever co-operating with and stimulating the work of the 
hand workers and often exceeding them in the severity of 
their toil. It is not too early for the Negro to learn that 
some of the opportunity and responsibility for the brain work 
of the world belongs to him, and that in proportion as he is 
able to embrace it and use it well, will his race achieve a 
symmetrical development of its powers, more nearly approach- 
ing that of other races, and so gain more and more the re- 
spect of their fellow men. 

But the individual Negro needs not only opportunity and 
training for working with both hand and brain, he also needs 
incentive for working, and the highest kinds of incentive. If 
anything, he needs incentive more than he needs opportunity. 
There are numerous opportunities open to many a Negro 
which he fails to utilize simply from lack of incentive. He 
is too easily content with his low estate, and has too little am- 
bition to improve it. There is probably not a Negro in the 
South who does not have the means, the skill, and the time, 
which constitute opportunity, for making his condition less 
wretched than it is, if he wanted to. But the trouble is he 
dosen't want to, and never will want to until sufficient incen- 
tives are set before him. It is a good thing to present the in- 
centives of material comfort and financial prosperity, — to tell 
the Negro he can have a better house and a more productive 
farm and an account at the bank, if he will only bestir him- 
self; these are all worthy incentives for effort, but they do 
not go far enough. It is as true of the Negro as of any other 
human being that the life is more than meat, and the body 
than raiment and that a man's life consisteth not in the abun- 
dance of the things he possesseth. Does it not behoove us, then, 
to c. waken within the Negro's soul the desire for a better life for 



6o 

himself and his family in that better home, whenever he shall get 
it, and to stimulate a craving for higher pleasures than those 
of the body for the gratification of which he may utilize his 
abundant harvests- and his growing bank account? Many a 
Negro already has more of this world's goods than he knows how 
to use wisety either for himself or others. Making a livelihood 
is important, bvit realizing a wholesome life is more important. 
The "plain living and high thinking" of our homespun an- 
cestors in New England and Virginia is a worthy object of 
aspiration to set before the American Negro of to-day. From 
the colleges and universities it came to our ancestors, and from 
colleges and universities it must come to the Negro. And as it 
comes, his incentive to work, with both hand and brain, for 
both the material and the spiritual progress of America, will 
be increased. 

But it is time to turn to the second part of our subject. 

In a recent address President Tucker of Dartmouth Col- 
lege used these words: "I believe with a growing conviction 
that the salvation of the Negro race of this country lies with 
the exceptional man of that race. ' ' These words of President 
Tucker concisely express the truth which explains the practi- 
cal value of the higher education to the Negro as a social group 
of which the individual forms a part. In showing how col- 
lege training is of practical advantage to the individual Ne- 
gro in enabling him to discover, and train his higher powers, 
and in furnishing the most potent incentives for their use, we 
have by no means stated the strongest reason for such educa- 
tion. A much stronger reason is to be found in the relation 
which the college-bred Negro holds to the masses among 
whom he dwells and works. The masses may not be able to 
go to college, but they may send their representative to col- 
lege, and when he comes home they be wise by proxy. This 



6i 

does not mean that they are all going to learn Latin and 
Greek from their representative, or make him a little demi- 
god of culture for their worship. But it does mean this: that 
in every community . of Negroes it ought to be possible for 
the common people, occasionally at least, to look into the 
face of a college-bred man or woman of their own race, 
and catch something of inspiration from his high attainment. 
Currents of culture and progress are ever being set in mo- 
tion among the masses of mankind by this sort of education- 
al induction, even where no direct offorts are put forth to 
that end. 

But the opportunity for ihe direct and positive activity of 
the college bred Negro in promoting the elevation of his 
own people is of the most varied and striking character. 

Consider the matter of popular education in the public 
schools. The South has separate schools for the two races, 
and custom requires that the teachers of these schools 
shall be of the same race as the pupils attending them.. 
The thirty thousand Negro public schools, on which the 
Southern states are spending six and a half million dollars 
annually, and have spent over a hundred millions since 
1870, are greatly weakened, and the vast sum of money 
spent on them largely wasted, because of the inefficiency 
of the Negro teachers. To stem this great tide of waste, 
and to provide teachers of the desired efficiency, there is 
no influence more potent than that of the Negro colleges 
in the South. The Graduates of these colleges not only 
teach in these schools, usually filling the most prominent 
positions in them as principals or otherwise, but they are 
also teachers of teachers, a single individual often num- 
bering the teachers whom he has trained for other public 
schools by the scores and hundreds, and the pupils thus 



62 

reached at second hand by the thousands. 

These college graduates are also prominent in organiz- 
ing and maintaining state associations of Negro teachers, 
and in conducting, under the direction of state superin- 
tendents of education, the summer teachers' institutes 
which are fostered by appropriations from the Peabody 
fund. In one case a Negro graduate has served for eleven 
years as a member of the City Board of Education, by 
appointment of the mayor and aldermen, in a large South- 
ern city. 

The religious worjc of the race presents another most im- 
portant field of activity for the the college-bred Negro. 
While slavery lasted the Negroes in many localities shared 
the religious privileges of their masters, and listened to 
the sermons of educated preachers. . With the advent of 
freedom, and the inevitable separation of i.he races in so 
many of the relations of life, the Negroes very naturally 
organized churches of their own, to the pulpits of which 
they called men of their own race, in most cases with little 
or no preparation for their work. Though some advant- 
age was gained in the assumption by the Negroes of the 
responsible management of their own church organizations, 
there was an undoubted loss, for the time being, in the 
character of their religious and moral training, and it is 
not unreasonable to suppose that to this, among other 
causes, may be attibuted the criminal tendencies of the race 
in their new life of freedom. While the character of the 
Negro ministry is gradually improving through the access- 
ion of better educated men to their ranks, the supply of 
such men is far inadequate to the need. 

As physicians, too, college-bred Negroes find an impor- 
tant field of usefulness. Aside from the ordinary round of 



63 

their medical practice, they are needed to foster the work 
of hospitals and training schools for nurses among their 
people. They can also do much in instructing their peo- 
ple in matters of hygiene, in improving the sanitary con- 
dition of their homes, and in the proper care of young chil- 
dren ; thus helping to reduce the excessive death rate of 
their race. In much of this work they can accomplish far 
more than white physicians working among their race. 

The opportunity for the college-bred Negro in the legal 
profession is not so large, nor the call so urgent, as in the oc- 
cupations already considered. But, in proportion to their 
numbers, I believe that the few college-bred Negroes who 
have become lawyers are having as successful and useful ca- 
reers as the members of the other professions. 

Some editors, too, must be supplied by the Negro col- 
leges, and these in co-operation with the lawyers and min- 
isters will be more and more needed, as the race progres- 
ses to foster a wholesome public opinion among the Ne- 
groes, to elevate the character of their citizenship and har- 
monize their relations with the white race. 

And this leads me to speak of another field of activity 
which loudly calls for the attention of all college-bred Ne- 
groes, whatever their specific occupation may be. I refer 
to the matter of organized efforts for their own social uplift. 
In every considerable community the Negro teachers, 
ministers, doctors, lawyers, editors, and others occupying 
prominent positions, have it in their power, by united 
action, to promote efforts for reform in such matters as 
temperance, purity, the improvement of home life, the 
training of children, the provision of wholesome amuse- 
ments, the organizing of reading clubs, debating societies, 
and lecture courses, and in general so ministering to the 



64 

higher life of their people as to help them to stem the tide of 
animalism and materialism that is ever threatening to sweep 
them away. Considerable of this sort of work has already been 
undertaken with fair success, generally under the auspices 
of the Negro churches, secret societies, and other beneficial 
orders. But the organizing power of the Negroes is still 
in a somewhat crude stage, and greatly needs the enlight- 
ening and directing influence which the college-bred Ne- 
groes can furnish, and are already furnishing to an encour- 
aging extent. And herein appears another very practical ad- 
vantage of the higher education of the Negro in that it is 
helping him to do for himself that which many have sup- 
posed only the white man could do for him. We have too 
long failed to recognize the tremendous power for the self- 
regeneration of the race to be found in the race's highest 
class, and in the aspiring members of its middle class. The 
discovery and equipment of this power is one of the very 
practical services rendered by the colleges for Negroes. 

A striking confirmation of the positions taken in this paper 
is to be found in the results of a careful in^-^stigation into the 
careers of college-bred Negroes under the direction of Dr. W. 
E. B. Dubois as brought out at the Fifth Annual Conference 
on Negro Problems recently held at Atlanta University. 

Since 1826, 2414 Negroes have been graduated from col- 
lege; most of them since 1870, and for the last six years to an 
average number of about 130 a year. 

With few exceptions these Negro college graduates have 
found work as teachers and professional men and also in 
newspaper work', business, farming and the trades. Returns 
from some 600 showed an individual holding of real estate of 
an average assessed value of nearly $2500. 

Returns from more than half of all these graduates showed 



65 

that 55 per cent, were teachers; 19 per cent, ministers; 6 per 
cent, doctors; and 3 per cent, lawyers, — or, 83 per cent, en- 
gaged in teaching and the professions. 

It was shown that 90 per cent, of those graduated in 
Southern colleges remain and work in the South, while fully 
50 per cent, of those graduated in the North go South and la- 
bor where the masses of their people live. 

To the question, "Do you vote?" 508 answered, "Yes," 
and 213, "No." To the question, "Is your vote counted?" 
7 said. "No," 61 were in doubt, and 455 answered, "Yes." 
To the question, "Are you hopeful for the future of the Ne- 
gro in this country ?" 40 were in doubt, 52 said, "No," and 
641 answered that they were hopeful. 

From such facts as these may we not safely conclude that 
the Negro college graduate as an individual is a good bread-' 
winner, thrifty property-holder, and conservative citizen, and 
that as the exceptional man of his race who has enjoyed ex- 
ceptional opportunity, he is devoting himself, in a very re- 
markable degree, to the forms of service most adapted to the 
uplift of the masses in intelligence, morality, and good citi- 
zenship? What can be more practical than an education that 
secures such results? 

I close by pleading for a larger faith in the exceptional Ne- 
gro — a larger faith in his capacity as an individual, and a 
larger faith in his power as a regenerator of the masses of his 
race, on whom we should seek more and more to shift the 
"white man's burden." 



SOUTHERN PERIODICALS. 
Dr. Colyer Merriwether, Washington, D. C. 



lyiterature is man's mirror in print. The periodical is the 
vitascope of life. This mark of human advance did not ap- 
pear in our oldest Southern colon}^ Virginia, till a third of 
the first century had been reeled off and then as an ofiicial 
gazette. Perhaps this laggardness is attributable to the influ- 
ence of Sir William Berkeley and others of his stripe, because 
more than a half a century previous he had said "I thank God 
we have not free schools nor printing and I hope we shall not 
have these bundled years; for learning has brought disobedi- 
ence and heresy and sects into the world, and printing has di- 
vulged them and libels against the government. God keep us 
from both. " 

But several years before Virginia heard the rumble of the 
press, some hundreds of miles farther down the coast in a bold 
little cit}^ b}^ the sea was started the first paper south of the 
Potomac, the South Carolina Gazette. It breathed spasmodi- 
cally and then passed away, suffering a fate so monotonously 
typical of numerous successors in the same spot, that Charles- 
ton has the bad reputation of the grave5^ard for magazines. No 
man knows the long list of those that have been born and bur- 
ied there within the sound of the sad waves, but at least three 
dozen can be numbered in that little aggregation of souls that 
did not reach that many thousand of population till far in this 
century. 

During the struggle for our rights with England, printing 
like all other enterprises except the shedding of blood lan- 
guished and dragged sickly hours for those seven years of an- 



67 

guish. The return of the activities of peace and of industry- 
brought new blood into the forces of the font and galley, and 
in reality only then began the career of magazines. Nor was 
the South behindhand in entering this fresh field. Here also 
was Charleston in the front ranks with a little weekly sheet in 
1810. 

Then arose that cloud that attracted the gaze and thoughts 
of the bulk of men for more than a half century, and prevent- 
ed the absorbing contemplation of the silent strength of litera- 
ture except in a saving remnant that fed the sacred fires. In 
the hot argumentative blast and fiery recrimination, the ten- 
der bud of magazine life could breathe but convulsively, and so 
many were hurriedly laid away that we could speak of the 
death of one almost as we do of the passing away of a person- 
that it joined the silent majority. The energy of the present 
day bibliographer and the tireless persistence of the antiqua- 
rian have never pretended to get a full catalogue of those rest- 
ing under the sod of failure. 

The South has her share of these corpses but proportionally 
no more than other sections. Against a wide and prolonged be- 
lief it may be said that magazines in the South flourished as 
well as in any part of the country up to i860, for there was un- 
usual success for none until after that epoch. Considering 
the odds against her within her own borders, this record is all 
the more remarkable. A Southern writer now in the height 
of his fame has summarized these obstacles in the path of the 
author in the old South. The conditions, he argues, wers all 
against the writer as the South was rural instead of urban, ag- 
ricultural instead of industrial, slavocratic instead of free, and 
political instead of intellectual. 

But handicaps might hamper, yet could not hinder the asser 
tion of the old spirit of the race for public expression, and the 



68 

very environment itself cried for organs to voice the Southern 
side of the question dividing all men's minds. Under the stim- 
ulus, sharp and rapid dashes were made for the coveted honor 
and the casualties were enormous. Out of the crowd of aspi- 
rants two found footing firm enough for them to withstand the 
strain of heavy expense and small circulation through a series 
of years. Both, tho sleeping for more than a third of a cen- 
tury, remain as monuments to the energy and perseverance of 
the founders and managers. Both are inexhaustible storehouses 
of material for reproducing the past of that section. Nei- 
ther was surpassed by any of its contemporaries in the qualit}^ 
of its output or the excellency of its management. Both strove 
with stupendous difiiculties but maintained a high standard 
to the end. 

They toiled along different paths but aimed for the same 
goal, the upbuilding of the South. One, the Southern lyiter- 
ary Messenger, located in Richmond, sought to do this along 
the literary levels, while DeBow's Review turned to the indus- 
trial road. Fortune favored the Messenger in the person of 
Poe as one of the earliest editors. He gave the pages a turn 
to fiction, poetry, and criticism. It is to the high credit of the 
Magazine that it was largely instrumental in developing one 
of the two literary geniuses that have been produced in Ameri- 
ca. Faithful to its other purpose the magazine wanted to ex- 
hibit to the world the pleasanter features of slavery, to soften 
the opposition to it and to pave the way for a better feeling. 
Generously was it welcomed North of the Potomac, and a very 
substantial percentage of its subscribers were there — an illus- 
tration of the inherent charity of this nation, for even as late 
as 1856 was an editorial pointing out what the editor consider- 
d the true realm for Southern talent, and warmly urging 
Southern authors to enter upon this possession and to com- 



69 

mence a genuine Southern Literature by giving to the world a 
history of African Slavery and then devoting their efforts to 
assaults on "free society" by showing how it was being un- 
dermined b}^ the insidiousness of socialism, anarchism, and a 
string of other isms. * 

At the start cold water was thrown on the project of found- 
ing this magazine. But no discouragements could daunt 
Thomas W. White as he had pinned his faith to the weakling. 
Grimly he pushed on and his six years at the helm gave an 
impetus that carried the scheme through thirty years, to 
the throes of the conflict that stifled so much else. But the 
spirit lurked underneath and a vibrating tradition fanned it 
into a feeble flame within the past decade, and it flickered 
for two or three months under the fostering care of a Vir- 
ginia woman. 

Just before the middle of the century when the South 
like the rest of the land was beginning to pulsate with the 
industrial fever, an exponent for the new spirit came upon 
the stage as DeBow's Review to blaze the way for an over- 
whelming material development of the South. Very appro- 
priately he took from Thomas Carlyle the motto, ' ' Com- 
merce is King," and under this banner he promised "a 
Monthly Journal of trade, commerce, commercial policy, agri- 
culture, manufactures, internal improvements and general lit- 
erature." With scrupulous care did he observe this obliga- 
tion. He was a fiend for figures and month after month he 
poured forth masses of facts and statistics illustrating all 
phases of Southern industrial energy. His unconquerable 
temperament heartily accepted the decision of the sword and 
his prospectus forhis new series, in 1865 in Washington, hope- 
fully pointed to the regeneration of the sections. But death 
stayed his restless fingers and his great periodical vanished 



70 

five years after the making of peace. 

So it was with his competitors, none endured the shocks of 
that awful cataclysm. But as a late poet puts it, 
With green grass spread 
♦ Hope was on ahead, 

and it was ineradicable in those hearts. Defeat of a cherish- 
ed cause and destruction of valuable property could not drown 
the longing for a medium of consecutive utterance. At 
scattered spots the tender shoot began to peep out amid the 
ruins and ravages of war. In Atlanta, one of the storm cen- 
tres of the conflict, a monthly appeared almost before the 
embers had cooled. The like process was observed in Balti- 
more, in Richmond, in Louisville, in Nashville, in Charles- 
ton, and in Augusta and other points. Most of them sought 
to utilize the war feeling and two of these, both in Louis- 
ville, under the direction of a confederate soldier. Gen. 
Basil W. Duke, were so prosperous as to be bought out 
by New York Companies. Perhaps the most ambitious and 
most favorable of all the attempts of this era was the South- 
ern Magazine, of Baltimore, under an editor acquainted with 
all the best Southern authors of the day. W. H. Browne, 
in his effort, was especially aided by a very remarkable man 
in our literature, Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston, who did 
not begin to compose till past fifty, the dead line in crea- 
tive power with almost all. Yet he opened practically a 
new mine for other toilers to delve fruitfully in for years 
after. Here also are the earl}- flights of that unfortunate 
poet Lanier, who sank at the threshhold of his day after a 
heartrending fight with unpropitious circumstances. 

But the elements were unkind for magazines or the outlay 
available was too meager. All of them in the first peace period 
are enshrined in the obituary column which steadily and path- 



71 

etically lengthened. Still the numerous interments seem on- 
ly to inspire, not to dishearten that unquenchable yearning. 
Interest has turned into two other channels and the tide of 
hope rises higher than ever. In one the dream of DeBow is 
realized after a half century has passed. The South has star- 
ted upon a bounding economic career, and there are agencies 
on a solid pecuniary basis to chronicle her advance. One of 
them seems the very idol of DeBow's heart, as its purpose is 
framed like his. The Baltimore Manufacturer's Record in few 
words sets forth the same view as DeBow, except the omis- 
sion of literature, when it announces "A Weekly Southern 
Industrial, Railroad and Financial Newspaper." Farming, 
the chief vocation in the South till now, has also naturally 
had its attendants of the type room. Some of them have at- 
tained a fair degree of prosperity. One of them through 
changes in title and location has lived on from 1841, and now 
continues as the Southern Cultivator and Dixie Farmer in At- 
lanta. 

But the other direction in which intellectual strength is ac- 
tive fu nishes as cheering a prospect. Within a little more 
than the past ten years has been a striking revival in histori- 
cal study. Old Associations have been revivified and a small 
crop of historical periodicals has sprung up till nearly all of 
the Southern states are suppHed with historical organs. 
Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, 
Mississippi, Douisiana, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, West 
Virginia, anH Missouri have at least one each and some two 
or three. It is most gratifying that in the main they are ac- 
tuated by the best sense of historical pursuit and try to give 
the truth without passion or prejudice. What is still more 
astonishing only a very few dwell on the civil war. Knowing 
that part of the field is in no danger of neglect they devote 



72 

their labors to the cultivation of the earlier and more remote 
portions, the era of the colonial and early settlements. To 
genealogy also is attributable a fair .quota of this renewed 
attention to the past. 

It would be unjust not to acknowledge the good service to 
the muse of history rendered by the daily press in the 
South. Without discriminating against others, especially is 
this meed of praise proper to the Baltimore Sun, the Rich- 
mond Dispatch, Charlotte Observer, Charleston News and 
Courier, lyouisville Courier Journal, Nashville American, and 
New Orleans Times Democrat. From time to time they have 
contributions in keeping with the modern methods of histor- 
ical writing that are not mere popular rehashes but are 
thoughtful additions to the sum of historical knowledge. 
Nor are they confined to topics of transient fancy but they go 
back to subjects of narrower and more select tastes. It is a 
compliment to their constituenc}' that such solid food is re- 
lished. 

Among the Periodicals the Virginia Magazine of History 
and Biograph}^ appearing quarterly, stands without a peer in 
the South and without a superior in America, whether we 
look at the quality of its output or the energy of its adminin- 
istration. In the financial success it wins, one is tempted to 
say it stands alone, the first in this country, when we bear in 
mind what it accomplishes under its limitations and conditions, 
being without Goverment aid and without private endowment 
but looking onlj' to popular backing for its maintenance. In 
its pages it goes to the foundations themselves of the histori- 
cal structure, and deals only with the primal scources of his- 
tory in the shape of official documents, letters, diaries and re- 
cords public and private, but rejecting essays and all writings 
of secondary importance, no matter how valuable it might be 



73 

to the general reader. It has pointed the wa}^ for the others 
and all strive to enter in. The one at William and Mary Col- 
lege, that at Johns Hopkins University, the two in North Car- 
olina, that in South Carolina, that in Texas and that in Ten- 
nessee and others of more local nature, all have this ideal. 

In respect to circulation, which has always been the vulner- 
able spot with Southern periodicals, one stands preeminent a- 
mong all those of the South, both living and dead. The 
Confederate Veteran, following the direction indicated by 
the name, claims to distribute twenty thousand copies ev- 
ery month, an insignificant figure for magazines elsewhere 
but a number at least four times greater than any other 
Southern monthly ever attained. At no year in our history 
have all the other Southern monthlies and quarterlies com- 
bined reached a circulation half that of the Veteran. 

So far as a popular literary magazine is concerned, the 
South to-day, after vital changes, occupies identically the 
position that she did two-thirds of a century ago when 
Thomas W. White sent out his prospectus for the South- 
ern Literary Messenger. During that long stretch life 
has been greatly modified, even in some respects galvan- 
ized and transformed, especially on the industrial side. 
Iron and coal rank with cotton. The mills are shifting 
from New England and Pennsylvania to the Piedmont 
slopes. Population is larger, wealth is greater, education 
more diffused, and the sectional issue is entombed forever. 
A host of new Southern writers has arisen. 

With all these favorable conditions so different from those 
White and DeBow unflinchingly faced, with the same balmy 
climate, with the same deHghtful diversification of nature^ 
with an early life of alluring tradition, with the national 
tragedy mellowed into a sacred thrilling memory, with a 



74 



people of sentiment and a future of financial promise, for 
the adventurous, vigorous poul, now would be the chance 
to use the romance and literary possibilities of the section 
to float on to the more responsive current of general appre- 
ciativeness. 



THE MILLER SCHOOL OF ALBEMARLE VIR- 
GINIA. ITS HISTORY, WORK AND 
RESULTS. 



Charles E.Vawter, A. M., LL. D. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — 

I count myself most happy, after the 
great flood of eloquence that we have had here to-day in be- 
half of Negro Education, to have the opportunity of calling 
your attention to the needs of the White Race in the South, 
and to the rich results that can be secured by work in this 
field. I rejoice in the favorable reports that have been made 
of your great work in uplifting the Negro. You have before 
you in that field a most difiicult and intricate problem. I 
must, ho^vever, in the beginning assure you that for four 
long years, first under Jackson and then under I,ee, I did my 
best to relieve you of this great problem and I have never a- 
pologized for my earnest efforts in your behalf. But we failed. 
You won and thereby fell heir to this difiicult task. My 
heart and deepest sympathies are with you in this great 
work. You are learning most, useful lessons. You are do- 
ing a great good and notwithstanding the great forebodings 
of some who look only upon the dark side, you will ultimate- 
ly win, through the power of Him who "maketh even the 
wrath of man to praise Him. ' ' 

I have been requested by your honorable President, Dr. 
Curry and by Dr. Frissell, President of the Hampton School, 
to tell this conference something of the Miller School, its 
history, its work, and its results. 



76 

This is my apology for placing before you to-day some- 
thing of the history of my own work during the past twenty- 
two years. 

But no statement of the School and its work could be com- 
plete that did not say something of its great founder, Samuel 
Miller, who was born in a log cabin in poverty and shame on 
the top of one of the eastern spurs of the Blue Ridge in Al- 
bemarle County, Virginia, on the 30th. day of June, 1791. 

The place of his birth is in sight of the School, but the log 
cabin has long since disappeared, only a hearth-stone remains 
to tell of the rough home of him who has provided homes and 
comforts for thousands, and whose work of beneficence and 
love will go on multiplying through ages. This world pre- 
sents no grander scene than the vision from the hill where 
the old log cabin stood, of the long unbroken line of poor 
needy children seeking the light and deserving to be lifted as 
they come year after year to this home of munificence, oppor- 
tunity and hope, and of the equally long unbroken column of 
young men and women moving out year after year, sound iu 
mind and body, pure in thought and with noble endeavor 
and full of hope, going forth equipped for life's w^ork to be- 
come mighty factors in the world's uplifting. 

Mr. Miller got all the education that he could within the 
narrow limits of his early opportunities and in earl}^ life be- 
came a school teacher. But in 1824 he moved to Lynchburg, 
Virginia, to aid his elder brother, John, who had gone into 
business there. 

In 1 84 1 his brother died and left all that he had, amount- 
ing to about $100,000 to Samuel. Upon this good foundation 
he built his fortune. 

By the way, Mr. President, the lack of an older brother to 
make the first $100,000 has been in the way of most of us be- 



77 

coming rich and doing great things as did Mr. Miller. 

Mr. Miller made his will in 1859, in which he remembered 
his slaves and provided well for them, left handsome sums to 
each of his relatives, gave the University of Virginia $100, 
000, added to his previous endowment of the Lynchburg Fe- 
male Orphan Asylum and gave the residue of his estate to 
the establishment of a school in his native county for the 
benefit of ' 'poor orphan children and other white children 
whose parents are unable to educate them the same being res- 
idents of the Count}^ of Albemarle. ' ' 

During the war when General Hunter invaded Virginia, 
some bummers following in the wake of his army, stole near- 
ly all of Mr. Miller's bonds that amounted into the millions. 
As General Early and his followers, one of whom I had the 
honor to be, were hastily eliminating the invaders from Vir- 
ginia, most of the bonds were scattered along the road side. 
These were afterwards by advertisement and otherwise re- 
covered. 

One large batch was found after the war near the White 
Sulphur Springs in an old barn by a little girl who was hunt- 
ing eggs. Her father recognizing them as Virginia bonds 
registered in the name of Samuel Miller, returned them. 
Some Indiana bonds, being considered more valuable, were 
carried off by an enterprizing New Yorker, who taking a Vir- 
ginian with him to do the swearing, established before the 
U. S. Court of Indiana that the bonds had been captured in 
honorable warfare from one who was notoriously a rebel, as 
we were called up there in those days. So the Court award- 
ed to the U. S. Government one half and to the finder 
and his assistant the other half. But fortunately the New- 
Yorker and the Virginian got into a quarrel as to how 
their half should be divided. Before this trouble between 
these men was adjusted, the war closed and Mr. Miller 



7H 

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8o 

the Washburne, Machine Shops, was making a great suc- 
cess, notwithstanding the false foundation upon which he 
was building. For his foundation was upon the idea that 
while having the pupils trained, their work should be of 
real money value. At that time a few other schools were 
beginning to feel their way in the dark.- But to say the 
least, it was a most doubtful experiment even in the North, 
while here in the South the prospects for success seemed 
almost hopeless 

Therefore it became necessary in building the Miller 
School with Industrial Training as its chief corner stone, 
to cut our way through a pathless wilderness with opposi- 
tion everywhere and sympathy nowhere. To dignify labor 
in the South was no easy task. The Negro looked upon 
all Manual lyabor as slave work from which he had been 
liberated, while the white man regarded Manual I^abor 
as the peculiar occupation of the Negro and therefore be- 
neath him. 

To educate away from this false idea on the part of the 
whites and make all kind of labor honorable was the diffi- 
cult task before us. 

For it became necessary to teach our own race that a man 
is more honorable who earns a living for himself and those 
dependent upon him by honest labor, than he who by the 
tricks of trade accumulates to himself what others have made, 
and that he who makes a single horse shoe nail adds more to 
the material wealth of the countr}^ than he who by doubtful 
means transfers a railroad from one man's pocket to another 
man's pocket. 

Therefore in order to dignify labor the most beautiful 
building upon the Miller School grounds, which are the most 
magnificent to be found in the South, was a work shop and 



was called a "Work Shop" and the very best equipments that 
could be had were put in it, even at the expense of having it 
called by our neighbors "Vawter's Folly," and the best 
teachers that New England could supply, educated men, gen- 
tlemen, were employed. This great object lesson was quickly 
learned by our Southern boys. The Shop, the equipment, the 
educated gentlemen and teachers with overalls on, doing the 
work themselves and teaching the boys to do it, created in- 
spiration and enthusiasm. The barrier of the ages was crossed, 
the victory was won, labor was made honorable and now 
it is considered a great honor to be assigned to a class in the 
shops which have already sent out hundreds of young men to 
honorable and profitable and happy lives. 

During the last twenty-two years we have turned out men 
who have become finely educated, who have gone to the Uni- 
versity of Virginia and elsewhere and have made themselves 
leaders and men of influence and power. 

But our best and most hopeful results have come from our 
wo^'k upon the dull bo)^, the boy whom the Schools and Col- 
leges would stamp as z fool because he could not on mathe- 
matics or languages attain to a certain fixed standard and who 
would be sent out by them into the world as a failure and for- 
ever to feel that he was an inferior kind of a fellow. 

Such boys are put to doing what they can do. For there is 
no boy however hopeless he may be when measured by the 
old standard, but has hidden away somewhere, a talent that 
can be developed into usefulness and power. 

Though he may fail year after year on arithmetic, there is 
something that he can do and in that field he can graduate 
and become a leader and a power and a success in the world. 

Again he may be lawless and bad and restive under the re- 
straints of law, and it even may become necessary to eliminate 



82 

him for the sake of others. But he should never be given up. 
One day you will touch some secret spring and bring to life a 
latent power and out of the rubbish there will come a man. 
"It is not the will of your father which is in Heaven that one 
of these little ones should perish." So long as you continue 
day after day to pray "Thy will be done," so long continue 
to work with hope for the dullest and most wayward. 

It would tax your patience too much at this late hour to 
give you practical illustrations of what I say. 

May I name a few cases that just now occur to me. One boy 
who looked like a fool and so far as his work in books was 
concerned, showed himself a fool, was tried in various ways. 
He shoveled coal under a boiler, he was then tried at caring 
for and watching the boiler and he developed the talent of 
carefulness; he was then put to watch and care for an en- 
gine, then a dynamo, then to caring for lights and the electric 
wires, and he as it were, lay alongside of these dynamos, 
wires, motors, and lights until he became charged as by in- 
duction with electricity, when after years of slow but steady- 
work, he was pronounced by an intelligent visitor from Chi- 
cago after talking with him. for some time, as the best informed 
practical electrician that he had ever met. 

Again a bad boy with bad influence, though occasionally 
showing bright spots, had to be expelled. But we closely fol- 
lowed his course. He went to Montana, became connected 
with a newspaper, soon was its editor, and soon its owner. 
His mother and sister he cares for and soon takes to a home 
of plenty in the far West, One day unexpectedly this bad boy 
appears in my office a handsome man, well cared for, to give 
me the most cordial greeting that I ever received and to as- 
sure me that the kind words spoken to him on leaving, not the 
harsh ones spoken when under discipline, never had left him. 



^3 

but had in all hours remained with him and guided his life 
and brought him to success and honor, and that he had come all 
the way back to thank me for those kind words. But I have 
no time for some of the most interesting cases, only let me say 
most emphatically after an experience that few have had,, 
never despair of your pupils however bad or dull they may be. 
Now in conclusion measuring the result of our experience at 
the Miller School in the work of Industrial Training, let me 
say that we have kept in touch with our boys who have gone 
out from the School. We have turned out about 600 boys, of 
these 54 are dead and of 44 we have no record, but of the 
others numbering above 500 we have records showing their 
salaries to range from $10,000 down to the pay of a private 
soldier in the U. S. Army in the Phillipines, that the average 
salary is $594, that the average salary of our 73 graduates i& 
over $1000, and that these 500 boys are receiving annually 
$300,000 or $225,000 more than in all probability they would 
have received had they never had the benefits of the Miller 
School, while there is no arithmetic that can estimate their 
worth as social, political and moral forces in the world. 

Among them are 5 Electrical and Mechanical Engineers,. 
5 College Professors, 19 Instructors mainly in Manual Train- 
ing in the South, 50 Mechanics, 27 Workers in wood, 34 Rail- 
Road men, from Superintendent of a road in South America 
to a brakeman. Then follow foremen of shops, draughtsmen,, 
chemists, pharmacists, inventors, engineers, plumbers, print- 
ers, farmers, florists, horticulturists, nurserymen, overseers,, 
clerks, stenographers, soldiers, and sailors. 

Time will not permit me, though just now so strongly 
urged, to tell of our girls who have gone from us pure in life, 
noble in purpose, to do faithfully the work that God has givens 
them to do. 



84 

Suffice it to say that of the 150 girls who have left us, one- 
third of them are married and with the training they have 
received while with us in cooking, sewing, and in art and 
letters, they are building beautiful homes and are making 50 
men as happy as men can be made on this earth, while 50 
more have returned to their old homes to leach the younger 
children, and with their acquired skill to help make the old 
homes more beautiful and attractive while they lighten the 
loads of the toilers and brighten the days of the weary ones. 
Another third are teaching or sewing or working in various 
fields of usefulness, making honorable and useful citizens. 

Our children are scattered all over this Union, in South 
America, and the Phillipines. In all the fields of the useful 
arts they are found. They are good citizens, honestly earn- 
ing a living and are making the world richer by their work. 
Above all, this practical example in Industrial Training is 
opening up new avenues to our Southern youths and giving 
new hope to our Southland. Our work, rich in its results, in 
the making of men, intelligent, honorable and industrious, 
gives hope. 

Industrial Training is needed to-da}^ in the educational 
field of the South more than anything else. For no field any- 
where offers finer results and a better revenue. When our 
young people of strong physique and noble purpose are in- 
spired and trained along the line of industry, wealth produ- 
cers, home builders, then failures, disappointments and their 
fearful consequences will cease. 

These homes builded by honest toil and maintained by 
thrift will be the happiest spots on earth. When this shall 
come to our land, (and God grant that it may come quickly) 
l)ar-rooms will close for want of patrons and our insane asy- 
lums now overcrowded, will cease to be, for want of the vie- 



85 

tims of disappointment, sorrow, hopelessness and drink. 

God grant that the inspiration of this day may be for the 
uplifting of both races in our Southland along the line of 
what is most needed, SYSTEMATIC INTELIvIGENT IN- 
DUSTRIAL TRAINING. 



ON THE INDUSTRIAL UPBUILDING OF SOUTHERN 
CITIES AND COMMUNITIES. 



Mrs. George Barnum, Savannah, Georgia. 

By all odds the most amazing thing that now exists in the 
South, to any child of her soil with anj^ knowledge of her his- 
tory or needs, is the present Public School system for the edu- 
cation of the negroes. Nor only of our black population, 
but I will first consider that education as it effects that race 
and the people of the South who are still more concerned in and 
injured by it. Originally a political necessity such as only a 
civil war could possibly have forced upon the South after more 
than a hundred years' knowledge of the race, it remains a pol- 
itical imbecility, the prolific source of pauperism, vice, crimi- 
nality in every Southern community; for this reason: No ed- 
ucation can properly deserve the name that does not fit the 
persons to whom it is being given for the lives they are to 
lead and enable them to become important factors in the gen- 
eral well being of the communities of which they form a part. 
lyCt us see how far the education the negro now receives bears 
this test, as simple as it is sensible — so simple, so sensible that 
it is really wonderful that such a system could have survived 
the re-admission of the Southern states into the Union upon 
their proper footing, for so much as one year, much more for 
nearly thirty-five. That any considerable body of Southern 
legislators and Southern educators should have been found, 
to institute and maintain a system by which several millions 
of ignorant ex-slaves representing a large part of the laboring 
population in thirteen states were set to leain everything ex- 



87 

cept skilled labor, at an enormous cost to the ruined Southern 
tax-payer, only proves how entirely Northern influence dic- 
tated such a policy inaugurated by Northern bayonets and 
sustained by a noble, if mistaken Northern sentiment. 
There has been time enough since the surrender at Appomat- 
tox to judge the system by its results. And what are its re- 
sults? Why every household, business and industry in the whole 
•South, it is not too much to say, has languished ever since and 
ever more languishes and will ever more and more languish as 
long as it continues, for the lack of skilled labour! So much 
for its effect upon the South. The old generation of me- 
chanics, cooks, laundresses, housemaids, butlers, coach- 
men has vanished forever and it is becoming a serious ques- 
tion indeed whether we shall ever look upon their like again. 
Carefully trained by many successive generations of intelli- 
gent and conscientious masters and mistresses (may they 
rest in peace, for they earned it and have never got any 
credit for their labors) the negroes of '65 gave proof to the 
last that they had been trained by patient, industrious, 
Christian folk who had metamorphosed African cannibals in- 
to useful men and women. But they were succeeded by a gen- 
eration which in all sorts of schools, public and private, were 
set to learn "Shakespeare and the musical glasses" — not on- 
ly "the three R's" which nobody begrudged them, for every- 
body felt that they ought to have a good, plain, English edu- 
cation, but the sciences, the languages, music, decalcomanie, 
free-hand drawing, integral calculus, Greek, the harp, lace- 
work, wax-work and God knows what beside that they 
could never need or want by any possibility, coming as 
they did by myriads from hovels and alleys and waste fields 
and returning to them at the end of seven or eight years 
spent in acquiring these expensive follies at the cost to them- 



88 

selves of about one- fourth only (as tax-payers) of the vast 
sums expended in gaining them and of more moral, mental 
and spiritual ruin than can ever be computed, for it is incal. 
culable. The Governor of Virginia reports a large increase 
of crime among the educated negroes of his State. The 
Governor of Georgia has had so many graduates of a cer- 
tain College that prides itself in its University course for col- 
ored youths that it has become a joke in the institution, it is 
said. The Governor of every other Southern State could con- 
scientiously say as much for the race within his jurisdiction. 
And the reason for this wretched state of affairs is not hard 
to find, nor is it one that is half as discreditable to the negro, 
as to our own people. He has taken what was given him. We 
had no right to give him a senseless education that does 
not enable him to get his bread honestly and add his quo- 
ta to the prosperity and civilization of the community, and 
then blame him for the idleness, shiftlessness, poverty^ 
theft, immorality, that make of them a menace to our fu- 
ture, and a blot upon our civilization — that in attempting to 
stand the pyramid upon its apex, has overthrown and in- 
jured it instead. How would the white race have fared, if 
instead of having been carefully prepared for American cit- 
izenship, it had (with all its tremendous advantages) been 
steeped in Vedas, Arabic, Sanscrit, Hindostanee and then 
set to fulfill the ordinary duties of the American butcher, 
baker, soldier, doctor, lawyer, sailor, merchant ? As it 
is, it suffers also from the lack of anything like a practi- 
cal education suitable for the masses of the people, though 
not to anything like the same extent. Is it a fact unwor- 
thy of the serious consideration of our legislature that the 
greater number of the girls and boys educated in our pub- 
lic schools will, of necessity, be engaged in cooking, sew- 



ing, cleaning, dress-making, tailoring, carpentering, brick- 
laying, shoe-making, and kindred industrial pursuits all 
their lives long, and that what they need is to learn the 
very best way of doing these things ? In Europe, not on- 
ly in the schools, bui in the highest classes of society, a- 
mong the Royal families even, the enormous value "of 
textile milling, farming, mining, industrial, and agricul- 
tural schools has long been fully recognized and established 
or aided by state subsides. It is only in our busy work- 
shop of a Republic, that the children of rich and poor alike 
are so imperfectly fitted for the lives they must lead, the 
duties they must do, the burdens they must bear. 

It appeals to one's sense of the ludicrous to visit a school 
in which this sort of thing is going on. Teacher intro- 
duces visitor to school. Visitor to pupil of seventeen (in a 
ragged dress, with infrequent buttons, and stockings that 
sadlv needed darning, not to mention an apron, that cried 
aloud to be patched. ) "Can you cook a crab?" 

"No, I don't know how to cook one but (with swel- 
ling pride) I know the habitat of the crab though." 

So important in a country full of fish, oysters, etc for a 
negro girl. Visitor "Have you a large private fortune, 
may I ask? Because with the education you are getting 
you will certainly need it, Lizzie''* 

"No ma'am, I aint got nothin. " 

Visitor. (Ashamed of firing at such a target.) How are 
you going to get your living when you leave school, 
Lizzie?" 
"Dunno Ma'am." 

Visitor. Dont you think You had better learn how to cook 
and sew? you will soon be a woman and every woman 
ought to know that, at least." 



90 

Lizzie. "I don' want to cook, Mamma is goin to have me 
taught to paint in oil and to do beadwork when I leave 
school." 

Visitor. "What does your mother do for her support?" 
Lizzie. "She washes." 

Another school that I visited amused me even more. 

The teacher was a very proper well educated white wo- 
man who was working on the Siege of Troy when I en- 
tered. 

"Now, Lucinda," she began very cheerfully, "tell us 
what you know about this. " 

Lucinda arose in her place (a very black girl of the most 
pronounced corn-field variet}') and began to stumble over the 
lessons in her broadest Congo as follows. "Well Siam he 
come along wid Helum, and dey walk along till deyineet 
up wid Aga-Aga-Agasunum — and"^ 

"You should say PiHam and Helen corrected the teacher 
hastily and added "you can sit down" whereupon Lucinda 
sat down much relieved to get rid even for a time of the 
ancients and it would certainly have made Timon of Athens, 
genial to have looked around at that class of girls in cheap 
slatternly attire, their hair arranged in Topsy-fashion, the 
plaits on end and tied up with shoestrings, their faces desti- 
tute of one ray of intelligence and then at the blackboard in 
front of them, with its "Synthesis of Studies" including 
all the ologies and half the isms of a New England "Sem- 
inary of Learning," It was in fact a Seminary and so call- 
ed by all the pupils except those that called it a "Cemetery" 
which it might as well have been so far as any practical ser- 
vice to the living was concerned. 

In a c\siS,s oi ^ o pa7ipers ranging from 13 to 17, not one girl 



91 

•of them all could make a loaf of bread or a single garment 
that a woman wears. 

This was of course not as "superior" an institution as 
those schools that go in distinctly for art and ethics and 
metaphysics. A friend of mine attended the exercises of 
such a one recently, and strange to say was not edified by the 
sight of a whole class of colored girls who were being put 
through their paces as follows : 

Teacher: "Miss Crampton, what — can you tell me is 
the difference between the general soul, and the particular 
soul." etc. etc. 

It was one of these gifted girl graduates perhaps who on 
being remonstrated with for putting vegetables on in cold 
water, without salt, for five hours, remarked gaily "O, 
well, art is long and time is fleeting as Tennyson says." 
Her College had made the mistake of not endowing her, af- 
ter imbuing her with so much learning, or failing to offer her 
the Chair of English I^iterature — in default of which she had 
become— a cook — heaven save the mark — and the family! 
Among 1 200 pupils of the white schools, the writer found only 
70 that could make a simple garment, or cook the simplest 
meal. Many of them were the daughters of artisans, and 
small tradesmen — most of them indeed. Some of them were 
motherless and in charge of their families. These facts speak 
for themselves. 

The writer is therefore perfectly satisfied after examining 
several thousand children of both races in our pubhc and pri- 
vate schools that obligatory industrial and technical training 
in our Pubhc Schools is what the South (and the North too- 
for that matter, the East and the West) needs to build her up 
and make her as prosperous as her patriotic and attached citi- 
zens long to see her. By direct, speedy, and intelligent leg- 



92 

islation it is in the power of our people to put an end to a 
state of affairs that has already existed thirty-five years too 
long. It was begun in good faith and colossal ignorance — its 
continuance would be a crime against the State, for its results 
are a menace (among the negroes at least) to our civilization. 



EDUCATION DURING AND AFTER 
SCHOOL DAYS. 



Dr. Julius D. Dreher, Saeem, Va. 

The term education is generally used as in the name of this 
Conference, to include the knowledge and discipline gained 
during school days. If we pause, however, to consider how 
short is the school-period of our people compared with their 
after life, during which education of some sort and by various 
agencies, good, bad, and indifferent, is going on, we shall re- 
cognize the fact that for the vast majority only a small begin- 
ning is made in the schools. Hence it is of the highest im- 
portance that this beginning should be well made. Of the 
more than 15,000,000 children in our common schools in 1898 
only one in 24 entered a high school and only one in 104 went 
to college; and of our entire population in that year only one 
in 1 16 was in a secondary school and one in about 800 in col- 
lege (not including those in professional schools). Such com- 
parisons serve to emphasize the eminent importance of the 
common schools in the education of the American people. I^et 
us inquire what these schools are doing to educate the youth 
of our country. 

If our first inquiry be to ascertain the average length of the 
term in our public schools we shall find that the average in 
the South Atlantic States (including Delaware, Maryland, and 
the District of Columbia) in 1897-98 was only 112.7 days and 
in the South Central group only 98.6 days. For the Southern 
States proper the school year scarcely averaged five months. 
The average number of days' schooling given, compared with 
the school population, was in the first group of states 44.2 and 



94 

in the second group 41.3; that is, only a little more than two 
months for every child of school age. The average years of 
schooling .(of 200 days each) given in the public schools of the 
United States is 4,46 which is about the time required for the 
primary course in a city public school. In the North Atlantic 
Statesitis5.7i ; in the South Atlantic States, 2.87; in the South 
Central States, 2.68; and in the North Central and the Western 
States, 5.25 : from which it appears that the average years of 
schooling in the South is only about half the average in the 
North and the West. 

If we next inquire into the matter of school revenues, we 
shall find that the two groups of Southern States taken to- 
gether average as much for each tax -payer in state taxes for 
schools as the North Atlantic States and double the amount 
in the North Central group; but the two groups of Northern 
States raise for schools by local taxation four times as much, 
as is raised by the Southern States. We need then to in- 
crease the local revenues in the South so that the school term 
may be lengthened. In order to accomplish that result, people 
must be convinced that it is necessary to the welfare of so- 
ciety to give good school advantages to both races, and that 
no investment pays a larger dividend than that in brains. As 
a matter of fact Dr. Wm. T. Harris has shown that when the 
average pay for a day's labor was 40 cents in the United States 
it was 80 cents in Massachusetts. With a term averaging about 
half what it should be, satisfactory results in our common 
schools cannot be obtained. For short terms mean low sala- 
ries and the two together mean that many persons teach as a 
mere make-shift and few for the love of it as a noble profes- 
sion. Already in many of our towns and cities good schools 
are maintained for from eight to ten months in the year large- 
ly by local taxation. To create a public sentiment that will 



95 

not be satisfied with schools of less than seven or eight months 
throughout the country and that will aim at nine or ten months 
everywhere, is the duty of the press and the pulpit, and of 
legislators and other leaders of public opinion in the South. If 
the negroes, inspired by the Tuskegee Conference, can length- 
en the school term, as they have done in many communities, 
the white people should be ready to make further sacrifices 
for the public good by levying local taxes to lengthen the term 
for the schools of both races. That must certainly be done if 
the common schools of the South are to be made effective. 
With longer school terms and higher salaries a larger body of 
good teachers will devote their lives to the public service, and 
thus the efficiency of the schools will" be still further increased. 
Kven with long school terms and well qualified teachers the 
public school can do little more than lead their pupils into the 
' 'vestibule chambers of education, " for these schools can scarce- 
ly carry their pupils far enough to prepare them well for the 
broader education which comes mainly through the medium 
of the printed page and contact with the problems of real life. 
To give such sound elementary training in the schools as will 
enable the pupils to read and understand books and papers is 
to furnish them with the key to the knowledge of all the ages, 
and open to them doors of opportunity to become educated 
men and women. Hence the chief aim in our schools ought 
to be to give this preparation and impart an impulse to con- 
tinue the work of self education when school days are over. 
The little knowledge of arithmetic, geography, and history ac- 
quired in our common schools is of small worth unless the 
pupil also acquires a taste for reading and a desire for a better 
education. It is all very well to tell boys and girls that they 
are the heirs of all the ages; but it is a far better thing to put 
them in the way of appreciating, claiming, and enjoying that 



96 

splendid inheritance. They should realize when yet young 
that they are to live in a great world of boundless activity that 
a glorious and fruitful past has placed its riches at their dis- 
posal, and that while they may now begin and may continue 
throughout life to appropriate these riches, they can never 
exhaust them. But how shall our young people come into 
their inheritance when there are so few libraries in the South? 
According to the report of the Commissioner of Education, 
there were in the United States in 1898, as many as 7,184 
libraries of more than 300 volumes each. The total number 
of volumes was 34,596,258. Of the 7,184 libraries the thir- 
teen Southern States have 806 and of the 34.599,258 vol- 
umes, 2,670,541; that is, the Southern States, which have 
more than one-fourth of the population of the United States, 
have about one-ninth of the libraries and only about one- 
thirteenth of the total number of books. Massachusetts has 
630 libraries and New York, 854. More than half of all the 
books are in the libraries of the North Atlantic States (in- 
cluding New England, New York, New Jersej', and Penn- 
sylvania). Massachusetts has 5,526,458 volumes and New 
York, 5,411,471, each of these states having more than dou- 
ble the number of books in the libraries of the thirteen 
states. Pennsylvania alone and Ohio and Michigan together 
have more books than these thirteen states. The Boston 
Public Eibrary and the library of Harvard University have 
each more volumes than are contained in all the libraries of 
any one of the Southern States. Connecticut, which is only 
one-eighth the area of Virginia, has 1,134,569 volumes, while 
Virginia, which leads the Southern States in the number of 
books, has only 358,715. Georgia would make forty-seven 
states the size of Rhode Island, but this little state has 589, 
1 1 2 volumes in its libraries while Georgia has only 283,885, 



97 

or not half as many as Rhode Island. Only three states in 
the South (Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky) have each 
more books than the mountain State of Colorado. 

Massachusetts leads the states of the union in providing 
public libraries for the use of its people. Of the 353 munici- 
palities in that State only four lack public libraries from 
which every man, woman, and child is entitled, without cost, 
to take books to their homes. The number of books in these 
free public libraries is about 3,750,000 and the annual circu- 
lation about 7,866,000 volumes, or a little more than three 
volumes to each inhabitant. Very few people in that Com- 
monwealth live too far from a free library to make regular 
use of its books; and public libraries are so common and are so 
generally used in connection with school work that there is 
little need to provide libraries of any considerable size for the 
common schools. 

New York is the foremost State in making use of traveling 
libraries. In 1898 as many as 259 issues of these libraries 
were sent to 117 places, and, besides, 281 extension libraries 
•w^-re also sent out. This work is under the direction of the 
Regents of the University of the State of New York, a cor- 
porate body which exercises some control over the educational 
matters of the State. Besides the traveling and extension li- 
braries, there are 143 library and institute corporations under 
the care of the University, distributed among 49 counties 
and having in all 475,059 volumes, not including the State 
library and the libraries of 695 teaching institutions. Under 
the New York system not only may any school or circle of 
readers have the use of a traveling library, but any citi- 
zen may have even a single book sent to him in the remotest 
corner of the State. 

In all of the Northern and the Western States there are free 



98 

public libraries in the cities and in most of the towns of any 
considerable size. The laws of these states encourage the 
building of libraries by allowing the levying of local taxes for 
this purpose and in some cases by direct appropriations from 
the state treasury. Fourteen states have free library com- 
missions to aid in establishing libraries. In spite of all the 
progress made in providing libraries, it is nevertheless true to- 
day that pupils in rural schools and in villages of less than 
-2 , 500 inhabitants have only in a few states respectable library 
facilities. Nearly all villages in New England and New York 
have such libraries and library commissions and associations 
are steadily improving them. In those states and in New 
Jersey, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana, and Califor- 
nia, which provide the money wholly or in part for rural 
school libraries, nearly every school has a library and these 
libraries are growing in size and quality. There are many 
such rural school libraries also in other states. And yet in 
Iialf of the states of the union, pupils do not have access to 
suitable books. 

The increasing interest in libraries in our country is shown 
by the fact that there are now some fifteen schools (including 
four summer schools) for the special purpose of training li- 
brarians. There are also journals devoted to the interests of 
libraries, the oldest of these. The Library Jotir^ial, being 
now in its twenty-fifth year. There is also a Library Bureau 
which furnishes various devices and aids to facilitate the use 
•of large collections of books. The American Library Asso- 
'ciation, which was organized in 1876, has about goo mem- 
bers, and not only at its meetings, but also at various educa- 
tional conventions, much time is devoted to the discussion of 
-matters pertaining to libraries. 

In the South we have, as has been said, comparatively few 



99 

libraries of any kind and we have only begun to build free li- 
braries. Of 637 libraries of more than 3,000 volumes entirely 
free to the public in 1896, there were only thirteen in the 
South, an average of one to each state. Since that time, how- 
ever, some progress has been made, and it is worthy of men- 
tion that last year Mr. Andrew Carnegie gave more than 
$200,000 to aid in building free public libraries in the South, 
an example which it is to be hoped will be followed more and 
more by public spirited men of means in this part of our coun- 
try as it becomes more prosperous. Only two Southern States, 
Mississippi and Texas, have passed library laws of a liberal 
character. Others have made provision for libraries in high 
schools, and in this respect considerable progress has been 
made in the South. The fact that so little legislation has 
been devoted to this question shows that our people do not 
appreciate the value of libraries. And the confession n ay as well 
be made that the Southern people read less than those of any 
other part of our country. They buy fewer books and take 
fewer periodicals and newspapers than the people of the North 
and the West, partly from lack of interest and partly from 
lack of money. If the professors of English in our colleges 
will ask the students entering in the fall to write out lists of 
the books they have read, it will appear that the majority of 
our 3^oung people read very few books. But interest in read- 
ing is increasing as a result of popular education, and the peo- 
ple of the South are fortunately becoming more able to buy 
-books; and in both of these respects, we may confidently expect, 
continued improvement. 

It is a matter of regret that our Southern papers pay so lit- 
tle attention to educational matters and especially to libraries, 
far less than is given by papers in the North and the West. 
Even here to-day in this Conference we may mention that while 
five or six Northern papers are represented and others have 



lOO 

special correspondents on the ground, only one Southern paper, 
a religious weekly of lyouisville, Kentucky, is represented here 
by its t:ditor, and so far as I am informed not one of our 
Southern dailies has even arranged to have a special report 
'made for its columns. As the press is so powerful in promoting 
all popular movements it is greatly to be desired that our 
Southern editors should take up this matter of better schools 
and improved library facilities for earnest discussion. As a 
great many of our people confine their reading almost wholly 
to the issues of the daily and the weekly press, the editors 
of our papers, especially in the South where books are not 
plentiful, occupy the responsible position of being the prin- 
cipal teachers of a considerable portion of our population. 

It should also be said that our colleges and universities are 
not always in active sympathy with the lower schools and that 
the3^ often fail to promote the interests of popular education. 
As leaders in educational work, college men, who are supposed 
to know the value of good books, may do much to foster the 
taste for good reading and to encourage the establishment of 
libraries. It is an important part of the work of higher educa- 
tion to teach students how to make profitable use of a library. 
Here in the South, however, a number of our colleges, and even 
institutions bearing the proud title of university, have libra- 
ries of only a few thousand volumes, and some scarcely a thou- 
sand. Especially is there a great lack of library facilities in 
the institutions for young women in the Southern States. 

I am a Southern man by birth, education, and residence, 
and I have had nearly thirty years' experience in college work. 
Hence I am well aware of the comparative poverty of the 
South and of the difiiculty of maintaining public schools and 
founding libraries. I am aware, too, that before the Civil War 
there were many fine private libraries in the South and that 



lOl 

there are a good many still in existence, but private libraries 
are to the free public libraries as select private schools are to 
our free public schools. Neither private libraries nor private 
schools can do any considerable work in the education of the 
masses of our people. 

When I urge the lengthening of the school term and the im- 
provement of library facilities in the South, it is because I be- 
lieve that we can better bear these additional burdens than 
those which illiteracy is likely to impose on us in the coming 
years. In this paper I have given some statistics and made a 
few comparisons simply to show that there is a great want to 
be supplied in the South. Of course no southern state is able 
to do nearly so ^uch as the rich commonwealths of Massachu- 
setts and New York and other northern states; but many of 
our cities and towns could well support free libraries at the 
public expense. Such libraries need not be large at first; for 
to the average reader the first 500 books are worth all the 
rest. We must, however, begin by creating first a taste for 
reading. As the reading habit is usually acquired between 
the ages of twelve and sixteen, we must begin in the schools. 
And as the expense must be considered, it seems to me that 
the most feasible plan in the South would be to introduce the 
traveling libraries in our public schools. Something has al- 
ready been done in this way in Georgia and with good results 
for three years. Women's clubs and railroad companies have 
also done something of this sort. In a great work Hke this, 
however, we must enlist the educational authorities of the 
states. If the state superintendents can be thoroughly interest- 
ed in this matter, they can interest the county superintend- 
ents and these the teachers. In normal schools and teachers' 
institutes the importance of interesting children in good books 
should be emphasized. Teachers' reading circles or as.soci- 



I02 

ations should be organized. Last year 7,000 teachers were 
enrolled in reading circles in Ohio, which was the pioneer 
State in this useful movement. Courses of reading should be 
prescribed for teachers by the superintendents and then by the 
teachers for their pupils. Supplementary and collateral read- 
ing should be a part of the regular work of the pupils. It 
would not cost a great deal to have traveling libraries of from 
twenty-five to one hundred volumes for use in all our rural 
schools and larger libraries in our high schools. No more 
important work can be done in the schools than to teach the 
children to read and love good books; for it is estimated that 
not fifty per cent of the children in our schools have any prop- 
er guidance or advice in their reading. To form this habit 
of reading what is best the school and library must work to- 
gether. Such a habit contributes to one's education as long as 
he lives; it helps him to enter into the life of the race and the 
experience of mankind. Even the humblest laborer or me- 
chanic will be a better workman if he is well read in the books 
of his trade and a better citizen if he has an intelligent knowl- 
edge of the history and institutions of his countrj-. If teach- 
ers are acquainted with the best children's classics, it will be 
easy to induce the pupils to read ; and, once the habit is formed, 
reading may be used to teach the highest lessons of patriotism, 
good morals,' and religion. For as Ruskin has well said: "We 
come, then, to the great concourse of the dead, not merely to 
know of them what is true, but chiefly to feel with them what 
is righteous." "If a boy reads" says Horace Mann, "of the 
friendship of Damon and Pythias, the integrit}^ of Aristides, 
the perseverance of Franklin, the purity of Washington, he 
will think differently all the remaining days of his life." 

Public libraries are now considered as a part of the edu- 
cational system in maay states; and as comparativeh" few 
pupils go through the high school and fewer still through 



I03 

college, it is evident that a large part of the education and 
culture of our people must be gained, if gained at all, 
through libraries. "Even a college degree," says Hon. 
Robert C. Winthrop, "is but the significant A. B. of a 
whole alphabet of learning yet to be acquired. The great 
work of self-culture remains to be carried on long after 
masters, tutors and professors have finished their labors 
and exhausted their arts. And no small part of this work, 
I need hardly say, is to be carried on under the influence of 
good reading and by the aid of good books." The support 
of free public libraries by taxation is, therefore, to be jus- 
tified on the same grounds as the maintenance of free 
schools. The wotk of the teacher is to be supplemented by 
that of the librarian, who becomes in an important sense 
the mentor and guide of the people , and especially of the 
young, in their search for knowledge and culture, a sort of 
John the Baptist crying in the wilderness of books, a true 
preacher of righteousness in the ministry of good I'tera- 
ture. If the public school is lo be a nursery of mental 
growth, good miorals, and patriotism, so must the public 
library inspire its readers to love good books, to be loyal 
to country and all high ideals, and teach in its silent way 
that true liberty means obedience to law, human and di- 
vine. It is interesting to notice that there are two Latin 
words of exactly the same form, though of different deri- 
vation: '7z(^(?r," meaning "a book, " and ''liber,'" meaning 
"free." Books do indeed make men free; free in thought 
and purpose and action; free from the influence of narrow 
environments and still narrower prejudices; liberal in the 
best sense of that word ; broad enough to be in sympathy 
with all that is best in literature, philosophy, and art, in 
the wide domain of human experience and in the wider 
sphere of human endeavor and aspiration. To be tuns in 



I04 

sympathy with the great world of humanity about us is to be 
ever illustrating in our lives the beautiful lesson which 
Matthew Arnold finds in the orbs above us — 

"A world above man's head, to let him see 
How boundless might his soul's horizon be, 
How vast, yet of what clear transparency." 
Diodorus Siculus tells us that over the great Library of 
Thebes in Egypt (B. C. 1400) was inscribed "Food for the 
Soul." Let this motto of the ancient time remind us in the 
present day of rapid industrial development, of splendid 
mateiial triumphs, and of the multiplication of physical 
comforts, that in the hidden chambers of the soul life's 
greatest battles are fought and its noblest victories won. 
The true "ministry of education," as George William Cur- 
tis says, "is not to make the body more comfortable, but 
the soul happier. " And Goethe tells us that "whatever 
emancipates our minds, without giving us the mastery of 
ourselves, is destruction." It is well for us to remember, 
especially at this time, that the real greatness of a country 
does not consist so much in the vastness of its territory, or 
in the size of its army and navy, or the extent of its com- 
merce, or the wealth that is reckoned by billions, as in the 
spirit and character and aspirations of its people and their 
unselfish devotion to lofty ideals of private virtue and 
public service. 

In his address at the opening of the Chelsea Library, James 
Russell Lowell said : "The law calls only the earth and what 
is immovably attached to it real property; but I am of the opin- 
ion that those only are real possessions which abide with a 
man after he has been stripped of those others falsely so-called, 
and which alone save him from seeming and from being the 
miserable forked radish to which the bitter scorn of Lear 



I05 

degraded every child of Adam. The riches of scholarship, 
the benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calami- 
ty. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As 
they cannot be inherited, so they cannot be alienated. But 
they may be shared, they may be distributed, and it is the 
object and office of a free public library to perform these be- 
neficent functions." 

Dean Stanley once warmly eulogized the people of our coun- 
try for their ' 'extraordinary munificence' ' to institutions of high- 
er education. We certainly have reason for just pride in the 
number and extent of such benefactions, and we mention with 
special satisfaction the fact that princelj^ gifts have also been 
made to found libraries, appropriately called the people's uni- 
versities, the most efficient form of school and university ex- 
tension. In the North a great many libraries have been built 
by the gifts of benevolent persons, the amount thus given in 
money bj'^ individuals in Massachusetts alone exceeding $6,000^ 
000. It is one of the cheering signs of the times that the fortun- 
ate possessors of wealth in nearly all parts of our country are thus 
providing for all classes of people the opportunities for mental 
and moral improvement. There can surely be no more effect- 
ive way than this to deal with the discontent of the laboring 
classes of both races, a discontent, which, although often de- 
cried and disparaged, has at all times been one of the might, 
iest forces in the social evolution, emancipation, and elevation 
of the human race. The highest mission of wealth is to con- 
tribute to the public good. We are rapidly coming into the 
kingdom of enthroned benevolence where wealth and position 
power will be regarded as honorable, not and for what they 
confer on their possessors, but only in proportion as such 
gifts are dedicated to the nobler service of humanity. In no 
other period of the world's history have so many people 



io6 

believed "that it is more blessed to give than to receive," 
that he who would be greatest must indeed become the serv- 
ant of all, and that he is most honored who is permitted to 
render the noblest service to his fellow-men. And this is the 
supreme lesson of Education. 



RD 6 6N 



MEMBERS OF THE THIRD CAPON SPRINGS CONFERENCE. 



Dr. J. L. M. Curry, Washington, D. C. 

Rev. J. E. Gilbert, D. D., . . . Washington, D. C. 
President Wm. L,. Wilson, . . . Lexington, Va. 

Washington and Lee University. 
Captain C. E. Vawter, .... Miller School, Va. 

Herbert Welsh, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Prof. H. S. G. Tucker, .... Lexington, Va. 

Washington and Lee Universit}-. 
Prof. A. L. Nelson, Lexington, Va. 

Washington and Lee Universitj-. • 
Miss Kate B. Conrad, .... Winchester, Va. 
Miss Anne Ruffner, .... Lexington, Va. 
Dr. Colyer Merriwether, . . . Washington, D. C. 

High School. 
President Frank G. Woodworth, Tougaloo, Miss. 

Tougaloo University-. 
Rev. Joseph N. Blanchard, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa. 
John V. Sears, ....... Philadelphia, Pa. 

F. S. Dellenbaugh, New York City. 

Rev. Lyman Ward, Camp Hill, Ala. 

Everett P. Wheeler, . . . . New York City. 
Prof. James A. Ouarles, . . . Lexington, Va. 

Washington and Lee University. 

Prof. A. H. Tuttle, Charlottesville.Va. 

University of Virginia. 

Mrs. a. H. Tuttle, Charlottesville, Va. 

Miss Louise J. Smith, Lynchburg, Va. 

Randolph-Macon Woman's College. 
Rev. W. a. Crawford, .... Kernstown, Va. 



OCT 261900 



io8 

R. Fulton Cutting, New York City. 

Mrs. R. Fulton Cutting, . . . Ne iv York City. 

Miss Helen Cutting, .... New York City. 
Rev. D. H. Greer, D. D., ... New York City. 

Mrs. D. H. Greer, New York City. 

President Julius D. Dreher, . Salem, Va. 

Roanoke College. 
President Horace Bumstead, . Atlanta, Ga. 

Atlanta University. 
Rev. Pitt Dillingham, . . . Calhoun School, Ala. 
Rev. G. S. Dickerman, D. D., . . New Haven, Conn. 

Miss J. E. Davis, Hampton, Va. 

Hampton Institute. 
President Chas. E. Meserve, . . Raleigh, N. C. 

Shaw University. 
Hon. H. M. Somerville, . . • New York City. 



Mrs. H. M. Somerville, . . 

Rev. a. B. Hunter, . . . 

St Augustine 

Mrs. George Barnum, . . 

Rev. T. E. Converse, D. D. 

Rev. George E. Horr, D. D. 

John E. Campbell, . ... 

Frederick A. Cleaveland, 

W. M. Palmer, 

Frank W. Garrison, . . . 

Prof. W. F. McIlwee, . . 

Rev. H. B. Frissell, D. D. , 



. New York City. . 

. Raleigh, N. C. 
s School. 

. Savannah, Ga. 

. EouisviLLE, Ky. 

. Boston, Mass. 

. Eexington, Va. 

. New York City. 

. New York City. 

. New York City. 

. ROSENBERGER, Va. 

. Hampton, Va. 



Hampton Institute. 



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